Paul Scholes

“On my mum Marie's side, my nana was from the Republic of Ireland, and my granddad was from the north. Lots of families in Manchester have strong Irish connections, but it never occurred to me to play for anyone other than England.”

“The hardest thing to coach is scoring goals and creativity.”

“I am always loath to assign goalkeepers too much importance, but you have to make an exception for the greats.”

“I worked with many great assistants to Sir Alex Ferguson over the years. Yet sometimes a manager's second-in-command is more suited to that role than any other. You confide in them - you tell them things that you would not tell the manager - and they are that bridge between the boss and the players.”

“I don't know why anyone would want to be a goalkeeper. It is a hard position to do well.”

“Playing against Messi, as I've said before, is as tough a test of your concentration as any in football. At any moment, he can take the mickey out of you. Physically, it is demanding, but mentally even more so. You cannot switch off.”

“I was fortunate to play with so many wonderful footballers and under the greatest manager of all time, but I do believe that a club's ethos, the principles of how it plays, should outlive even the biggest individuals in its history.”

“Playing in attack is difficult. You are under scrutiny, and you have to be able to deal with that.”

“Modern managers have a lot of demands on them, and many feel, with justification, that they do not have the time to commit to watching the junior sides.”

“When I watch Jurgen Klopp's Borussia Dortmund side, I see a manager who is determined to play in his opponent's half, who is committed to attacking football, and, from the way he conducts himself on the touchline, is clearly an interesting, charismatic personality.”

“As a club, there was never any middle ground with Newcastle. They were as high as the sky or in a pit of despair.”

“Little details about young footballers catch your eye when you have been around a big club for a long time. At first, it can be minor things, like the way certain young players stand out from the group when the academy lads cross paths with the senior team on their way to training in the morning.”

“We played 63 games in the treble-winning season of 1999, and I cannot remember feeling tired once. We won the league title with the last game of the season, and along the way, we knew that in any game we could miss out on this chance of a lifetime to win all three. We had 22 players who were ready to be called on at any moment.”

“Managers live and die by their recruitment.”

“If you want a measure of how private a place the dressing room was when I was growing up at Manchester United, consider this: even Sir Alex Ferguson would knock before coming into the dressing room at the Cliff, the old training ground. The dressing room is for the players - and the players only.”

“When I started as a pro at United, I played alongside Bryan Robson in the A-team and later in the senior side. With Bryan, it didn't matter what level we were playing or which one of his team-mates got kicked. Within five minutes, you could guarantee that the opponent in question would be in a heap on the floor, courtesy of Bryan.”

“English clubs should not be pleased to go to places like Barcelona and get away without a thrashing. They should be able to compete. They have the resources.”

“As players, we were paid to do a job we loved - in my case, at the club I supported. And nothing I did could be allowed to interfere with that. The manager would not have permitted it.”

“In the periods of my career when I stopped passing the ball forward or when I stopped looking for the risky pass that might open up a defence, the consequences were the same. The manager stopped picking me. I got back into the team when I went back to doing it the way he wanted.”

“I never wanted to lose my place in the United team, much less my place at the club. What went on beyond the pitch was none of my business.”