The Wisdom of Gaffers

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.

We feel hard done by with the goal and how it came about but that's life for us today I'm afraid.

Eddie Howe, Bournemouth, February 2014.

deliberately left u to do the honours on that one just fyi xp

A good defender has a good habit of getting hit by the ball

Stuart Gray, Sheffield Wednesday, February 2014.

Possession is vanity if you don't do anything with it.

Mark Robins, Huddersfield Town, February 2014.

There was talk that Leicester might be tired after the midweek match at Forest. But you can't tell me that Vardy and Nugent were tired. That's all psychological babble that they might be tired.

Mick McCarthy, Ipswich Town, February 2014.

To be fair to the players, I said to them "go out and some of you prove me wrong"

Steve Evans, Rotherham United, February 2014.

It probably means now that Peter Taylor has picked the wrong team because we lost the match but I don't think that was the case.

Peter Taylor, Gillingham, February 2014.

I don't like defeat at the best of times.

Steve Cotterill, Bristol City, February 2014.

We're splitting hairs again on a decision and the split of the hair went against us.

Graham Westley, Stevenage, February 2014.

Not good enough. That's my assessment.

I can't accept that and I'll not accept that and the players have been left in no uncertain terms that I'll not accept that.

Steven Pressley, Coventry City, February 2014.

I know it's a results-based industry

We have to find a way of winning a game and scoring a goal.

Neal Ardley, Wimbledon, February 2014.

It's not New Year's Eve, I'm not going to be partying at home until two in the morning

Chris Wilder, Northampton Town, February 2014.

We said to the lads afterwards 'what do you feel?', and they said we feel we've lost two points today because we should have gone on to win that game.

Terry Butcher, Hibernian, February 2014.

There's something in the water up in Inverness, I'm serious. With this bunch of boys in that dressing room, there are no egos, no 'Billy-big-times'.

If they play good, indifferent or bad, you know you're getting 100 per cent. They train like that, they play like that, they live their lives like that.

John Hughes, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, February 2014.

It would be easy to just crumble and roll over and let United come down the hill and beat us by four or five.

Stuart McCall, Motherwell, February 2014.

Was considering starting Scariest Manager in League One poll, but the top three was so clearly Pressley-Clough-Kavanagh, and Pressley was so clearly in front, that it just seemed pointless.

Steve Evans seems like an archetypal small town crook whose hired muscle might accidentally go too far with a warning beating.

I'd imagine it takes a lot to get on the wrong side of Kenny Jackett, but once you got there you'd find it was a fucking terrifying place.

Westly kind of has a "YOU'LL NEVER FIT KITCHENS IN DIDCOT AGAIN!" sort of vibe.