Quotes from Paul Merson

Alan Shearer, Ian Wright, unbelievable centre-forwards - but you could not say to them: 'For the next three weeks I want you to play No 10 and thread the ball through the eye of a needle.'

David Nugent tore up the Championship but he's gone to Portsmouth and he's a fish up a tree

I've lost millions. The money's not the problem it's the sanity. You go insane. As soon as the bets on you are like 'what did I do that for?' You search and search for the bet and then you think 'why did I do it?' Then the self-worth comes in and you hate it.

I placed some silly wagers, sixty grand here, eighty grand there. I'd ring up a bookie and bet £10,000 on something like who would be the first batsman out at Lord's that day. I was that off my head.

I have an illness. I have a mental illness. I've accepted that now. Before, I used to beat myself up all the time, but the more you talk about it, the more it takes the power out of it.

When you see your friends going out every Friday night, and earning two hundred quid at the building site, and you're earning twenty-five pounds at Arsenal, and you have to stay in every Thursday, Friday, you know it is hard.

The big oxygen thing is out for Benni McCarthy... he's got a lot of medical round him

We grew up in an age of playing reserve team football at the stadium. If the first team were playing away, you'd be playing at home, at Highbury, and there would be one man and his dog there. Even though you'd psych yourself up, you still don't get that push.

But I was just a normal person really. You see, I didn't get it in my head that I was just a professional footballer for Arsenal Football Club.

I keep my life to one day at a time.

When you play Leeds, you need players who are quick and who are capable of beating opponents as they like to set up one-v-one.

Being an addict is hard. It's something you have got for the rest of your life.

When we kicked off and no one came to mark me I thought, 'Hello, it's Christmas.'

I played at Aston Villa for four years and most of the time I loved it there, but typically it took me a while to settle in.

Everyone knows me from my time at Arsenal. No-one really remembers me at Boro or Villa.

When I first showed up at Villa I thought we had a weird old dressing room.

This is hard to say but I think Jurgen Klopp has been a bit blinkered at Liverpool.

Football is decided on fine margins.

Goals dictate how matches go.