The Wisdom of Gaffers

I asked the foreign lads at the team meeting what they thought about the FA Cup and now they'll realise.

Stuart Gray, Sheffield Wednesday, January 2014.

We've got 19 real cup finals and there's magic in every one of those games for us because we can really achieve something this season.

Keith Hill, Rochdale, January 2014.

I'm happy, happy, happy - wow, off the Richter scale of happiness.

Keith Hill, Rochdale, January 2014.

There are hundreds of players that we could go out and get tomorrow - the key is, it has got to be the right one.

Gary Rowett, Burton Albion, January 2014.

He is a player that loves football and loves to be involved in football

David Flitcroft, Bury, January 2014.

I felt we needed a body and Matty fits that bill

Andy King, Northampton Town (caretaker), January 2014.

Results-wise, wins give you a big change in as far as the points and the league positions are concerned.

Nigel Worthington, York City, January 2014.

We've got young kids on the bench, so I thought we battled manfully

Yes, I think it's a yellow card, but we're not playing in my day or Derek's day. If it had been in that we'd have played on, but we're playing in the day now and it's a yellow card.

Stuart McCall, Motherwell, January 2014

You have to lay a foundation and at the moment we are laying down a footing. We are clearing away the earth to lay that first brick.

David Flitcroft, Bury, January 2014.

This football journey at Bury is full of good people, and Clive is another great human being to have with us. He knows football inside out and his experience will be invaluable to us in the final twenty games and will be extremely valuable for us to move forward. Clive is a leader of men and enjoys leading a team. His hold up play is second to none and now that we have plenty of pace and power in the squad, it will be important for Clive to hold the ball up for us. Now it is my job as manager to make sure that the movement in and around Clive is devastating to the opposition.

David Flitcroft, Bury, January 2014.

Obviously I know the manager very well and his enthusiasm rubs off any player, no matter their age.

Clive Platt, Bury, January 2014.

I spoke to the referee but it didn't make me feel any better.

Gary Bowyer, Blackburn Rovers, January 2014.

We are that surprise package and that can be favourable to us. We have got a team who play without that feeling that them other clubs have got because there is that demand on those clubs to get the job done.

Ours is slightly different - we have our own expectation, of course - but the outside expectation is lesser so on Burnley than them boys who are up there now.

Sean Dyche, Burnley, January 2014.

"Some people might be frustrated with that result? Some people can fuck off."

Mick McCarthy, Ipswich Town, January 2014

We have players who have been out for a long period of time, who I'd like to think are getting a bit closer to the recovery process

Nigel Adkins, Reading, January 2014.

I won't go into a corner and back down.

Dougie Freedman, Bolton Wanderers, January 2014.

Hopefully the fans take to him because of his work rate and desperation to make a career in the game.

Mark Cooper, Swindon Town, January 2014.

We played the sort of football that I want us to, it's just that our fans have gone home after a defeat so probably won't remember that.

Colin Cooper, Hartlepool United, January 2014.

Tommy has been a very useful member of our squad, but it didn't materialise that he was playing regularly for us this season

Paul Tisdale, Exeter City, January 2014.

We should have won it easily and instead we ended up drawing, so that's a disappointment.

Steve McClaren, Derby County, February 2014.

We've done two days of work on it, which isn't enough work for any back four, but sometimes when you do that it ends up working well.

Lee Johnson, Oldham Athletic, February 2014.

It's disappointing because we've had a good week. It could have been an excellent week and it's turned out to be an average week.

Richie Barker, Portsmouth, February 2014.

These supporters aren't on a blind date. They know what they are seeing, they know what we are trying to achieve and how we are trying to achieve it.

Keith Hill, Rochdale, February 2014.

He's a very important player for us because he's a top player.

Manuel Pellegrini, Manchester City, February 2014.

It is a culture shock because they realise they're playing for their livings here. It's not 'you have 50 passes and then we have 50 passes'. This is the real world. They come in as boys and go away as men.

Ronnie Moore, Tranmere Rovers, February 2014.

The manner in which Ipswich got the goals was fortunate but I would have thought from Mick's point of view, he would have thought they deserved it, which is understandable.

Danny Wilson, Barnsley, February 2014.

I think there are long-term scars at the football club with certain players here and I think we need to try and shake them off and move on.

Dougie Freedman, Bolton Wanderers, February 2014.

I understand the need to push away from the bottom.

Chris Powell, Charlton Athletic, February 2014.

We didn't score but that's football

Aitor Karanka, Middlesbrough, February 2014.

With a bit better finishing, we could have finished them off earlier.

Stuart Gray, Sheffield Wednesday, February 2014.

we didn't really affect their goalmouth enough.

Lee Johnson, Oldham Athletic, February 2014.

I thought we were excellent in our pursuit of making sure that we didn't give the opportunity to the opposition.

Keith Hill, Rochdale, February 2014.

(I think Keith may have squared himself here)

god bless you Swygart

As a football man you want to concentrate on football matters, as anyone would want to do.

Brian McDermott, Leeds United, February 2014.

First half I had too many regrets.

Lee Clark, Birmingham City, February 2014.

The mind games were there from four o'clock onwards - was the game going to go ahead? The referee probably had more mind games than the rest of us.

John Ward, Bristol Rovers, February 2014.

We couldn't have scored if we'd used a rainbow as the goalposts.

Juande Ramos, Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, February 2014.

lovely image. Sid Lowe tweeted that it is something of a common phrase in Spain.

i keep picturing this
http://chaosjeff.tripod.com/europe72-01.JPG

We try to convince ourselves about total football but that's not the British way. The fans want to see excitement.

Lee Clark, Birmingham City, February 2014.

I made the decision not to play and stay on the sidelines, and the squad is becoming strong enough to cope.

Barry Ferguson, Blackpool (interim), February 2014.

What I did like was all the game, not part of the game, because my team were able to suffer.

Giuseppe Sannino, Watford, February 2014.

We're not going to look for excuses for ourselves but the goalkeeper's got the ball in his hands, Revell makes no contact with the ball, a lot of contact with our goalkeeper and the ball runs loose: 99 times out 100 I think you'd see a free-kick in that situation.

Deano in the middle of the park, trying to roll his foot over the ball and drag it one way when you think, 'look, we've just got ourselves level, let's keep the ball in good areas at that stage'.

Graham Westley, Stevenage, February 2014.

If John Nutter's going to score, it's going to be scored in the second minute not the 88th.

Garry Hill, Woking, February 2014.

Sean Dyche has taken the Claridge role on this week's football league show. Very much protecting from deletion on my BT infinity box.

As I said, no one has been sacked. We had a discussion. And, as you know in employment, once that happens, it has to go down the legal route and that is where we are at the moment.

Lee Clark, Birmingham City, February 2014.

One-nil is a bit hairy-scary

Gary Johnson, Yeovil Town, February 2014.

sometimes you have to dog-out wins like that.

Lee Johnson, Oldham Athletic, February 2014.

I'll never stop learning and improving and I'll do that again on Monday.

Barry Ferguson, Blackpool (interim), February 2014.

Hopefully this reputation I've got where I can do not-too-bad things with these big clubs' young players is helping us get the edge over some of my rivals, in terms of trying to help them on in their development.

Lee Clark, Birmingham City, February 2014.

If you start looking at the table mathematically then we don't get beat at Charlton.

Kevin Bond, Queen's Park Rangers (assistant), February 2014.