Quotes About Football

I had a good first season at Tottenham, but in the second there wasn't a sequence of games. So when I didn't feel happy, I waited for the season to end and then asked the president to let me go to try another challenge.

Well 'Monday Night Football,' I think the players kind of like it because they like the attention, and it's a lot of attention. But on the other hand, it's a disruption of the routine we used to have to play on Monday night. If you're a player, you sit around all day waiting for a game. It's different than when you play at noon.

So they talk about heaven, and I don't know what is waiting for me up there. But I can tell you this: Nothing will happen up there that can duplicate my life down here. Nothing. That life cannot be better than the one I've lived down here, the football life. It's been perfect.

When I lived in Hungerford, it was wake up 5:30 A.M., get to the van at 6 A.M. with eight other blokes, drive to Shinfield, which is in Reading, 45 minutes away. Start at 7:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. with two half-hour breaks and then home. Train Tuesday and Thursday and then play on Saturday.

I think sometimes players must have a wake-up call before they realise they are back in African football.

I was fortunate enough to play in a number of finals, and I can still remember waking with butterflies in my stomach. It is at moments like those you realise why you fell in love with football in the first place.

Real Madrid is much more than I expected. I love waking up in the morning and going to Valdebebas.

I think this is something special about Italy; waking up, taking the coffee in the morning and talking only about football.

I get the Swansea-Cardiff thing: I was a Swansea player; I loved playing against Cardiff. But when I played for Wales and played with Jason Perry or Nathan Blake, I never saw them as blue and white and me as black and white.

I love playing for Wales.

Every time I manage Wales and you win, the feeling is better than I've ever had as a club manager.

It is massive progress in the space of a year being a Man United regular and playing for Wales. But things happen so quickly in football you have to be ready for anything.

The first games were against Belgium and Switzerland, and that changed me as well because I used to play striker at Hull, and when I went away with Wales, I played as a winger.

Whether I'm playing or not I'm proud. I'm as proud to play for Wales as I am Man United, to be there at the club.

I've played in nearly every league and country on these islands, apart from League One. I've played in Scotland, I've played in Wales, in the Premier League and in the Championship. I've been lucky to get a broad footballing education.

I'm happy to be in the centre for Wales - that's my favourite position and where I play my best football.

We know, in Wales or in England - you simply can't trust Labour on the NHS. In England, we are delivering for patients while Labour just use the NHS as a political football. We won't let them; we'll always fight for the NHS.

I was captain of Wales; I've been captain of numerous football clubs.

I looked at it, and it was like, 'Can I push and make the Olympic squad?' It is tough going from 18 players, including Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. I thought that might be a push too far for me. I had no Champions League with Chelsea. I lost my motivation.

When Hull came calling it was a great, great move for me and when I went there I managed to get some goals and assists and get a senior Wales call-up.

We've got a lot of players not playing domestic football week in, week out. What is it? Is it the crest on their chest that makes them raise their game? It must be. It's playing for Wales. It's powerful and everybody would walk on broken glass to get into this squad.

I have managed at League Two and League One level and then went to Nottingham Forest for a short time as assistant when Gary Brazil was caretaker before going into the Wales U21 job and I have now been involved for four years.

When I see Wales qualifying for the Euros and Leicester top of the league, I wish I was still playing.

At Birmingham, I was a pain in the backside for my manager Steve Bruce when I found out Blackburn wanted to sign me and it was a chance to play for Mark Hughes, a player I had idolised when he wore the red shirt of Wales.