What are they going to do, shoot me? It's not war you know.

I can't keep protecting people who don't want to run about and train, who are about three stone overweight. What am I supposed to keep saying? 'Keep getting your 60, 70 grand a week but don't train'? What's the game coming to?

It's like being on the Titanic and seeing there's only one lifeboat left.

He is not injured. He's not fit. He's not fit to play football, unfortunately. He played in a reserve game the other day and I could have run about more than he did. I can't pick him.

He's disappeared to Azerbaijan, or somewhere ridiculous in the world.

I left a couple of my foreigners out last week and they started talking in foreign. I knew they were saying "Blah, blah, blah, le bastard manager..."

Scholes was playing tiki-taka football when nobody in England knew what it was. He was another of those players, like Denis Law or Bobby Moore, who at 15 probably looked as if he wouldn't make it. Too small, you would think - can't run, dumpy little ginger nut - but then the ball would come to him and he would dazzle you. He was the best footballer in that Manchester United midfield, better than Ryan Giggs and Roy Keane.