Newcastle 5-1 Sunderland
Chris Hughton: “My position is no different this week to what it was last week and the week before. I am manager of this football club and very proud to be manager of this football club, and I am endeavouring to get the best results possible, and we were able to do that. My position is no different Those decisions are always down to the club, as they always have been. My remit at this moment is to do the best job that I can. I am incredibly proud of a group of players today who made a very, very difficult game comfortable at times for them.”
Steve Bruce: “The mark of any team or any individual is how you respond to it. All I can do is apologise. When you get beaten as badly as that, here of all places, it will take a lot of recovering. Me, as manager, I will take full responsibility. Anything that could have gone wrong went wrong, from red cards to mistakes. I have been saying all week that we must handle the occasion. But from the off, we didn’t and we got blown away by a far superior team on the day. We were playing a big derby game and we had three or four players. To win it, you need seven or eight – that’s what Newcastle had and we didn’t have enough and we got our backsides kicked.”
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Bolton 0-1 Liverpool
Owen Coyle: “I felt it was cruel on the team given the efforts they put in. We dominated the game for large periods. I am loathe to sit here and moan about decisions but it is a clear penalty in the first half, where I think it was Carragher with the handball. We could have had a couple in the second half when Kevin Davies had been knocked to the ground as well
Roy Hodgson: “If we had come into this game in a different position in the league table and with a few wins behind us, I think we would have settled down and been a bit more relaxed. As it is we are affected by the table and the fact we have started so badly. We have been rightly criticised for starting so badly and when that happens one of the things that goes out of the window is composure and confidence.”
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Aston Villa 0-0 Birmingham
Gerard Houllier: “We lacked a bit of freshness, imagination and creativity. I think we have to take into account most of us played two hours in midweek. I’m happy with the effort and that we really competed in a tight derby. Maybe we lacked a bit of stamina but in the last half-hour we were better because we brought on fresh legs and maybe the best chances fell to Ciaran Clark and Young.”
Alex McLeish: “It doesn’t seem that Reo-Coker and Gardner get on. I deduced that quite early. Nigel had a lash out and some referees might have interpreted that differently. He (Howard Webb) didn’t see it as violent conduct. I saw Nasri at Arsenal when he kneed Liam Ridgewell in the backside in a similar fashion. I’ve seen them get sent off for that.”
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Manchester United 2-0 Tottenham
Alex Ferguson (on the bizarre Nani goal where the United forward pinched the ball from Spurs goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes while Gomes was about to take what he thought was a free-kick): “It was bizarre. No one knew at the time what was wrong. One minute the goalkeeper had the ball in his hands and next it’s in his net… You can look at the referee and look at the linesmen and blame them, but the goalkeeper should know better. He’s an experienced goalkeeper. I thought he made a mess of it.”
Harry Redknapp: “It was handball (by Nani). He put his hand on the ball and dragged it down. He should have been booked. The referee didn’t see him handball it, that’s why he’s allowed play to go on. The assistant referee has seen it, that’s why he’s flagged. He’s (ref Mark Clattenburg) gone over and he’s told him what he did, he should disallow the goal… Gomes put the ball down for a free-kick. If you look at (Darren) Fletcher he’s called Nani to get back into position because he thinks we’re going to counter attack from the free-kick… Gomes puts the ball down to take a free-kick. It’s obvious. Why would he stand there and leave the ball there after he saw him handball it?… The game lasts 90 minutes. You don’t know, we’re one down, we may get another opportunity to score. You don’t know.”
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Blackburn 2-1 Chelsea
Sam Allardyce: “They’ve got a punishing side to their game and they’re ruthless. When they’re being out-played – and we out-played them at times – they hang in there. They’re not in the game and they’re not looking like scoring and we’re in the ascendancy, then with three passes it’s a goal. That outstanding quality can punish you at any time… It’s tremendously disappointing for the performance we gave to get the result we got.”
Carlo Ancelotti: “Blackburn could have scored before our goal and we were a little bit lucky. He (Jason Roberts) could have closed the game… To win here was important because they were better. We were not great again. Blackburn put us under some pressure and we were not able to play our football. We knew it would be difficult to win here because Blackburn are a very good team with a lot of strength and physical ability and long balls. So it is very important to win here to maintain our position at the top. “
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Arsenal 1-0 West Ham
Arsene Wenger: “When you win with two minutes to go, it is always a relief. We needed to be patient, intelligent and not to make a mistake at the back against a team who had a strong spirit and were well organised… and that got us the goal. I was thinking it was one of those days when the ball went onto the post and came back into the goalkeeper’s hands, that is not a good sign. But we kept going and out of this game we have once again shown a great attitude.”
Avram Grant: “We have played a game against a very good team who just beat us in the last minutes, so we can take a lot of positive things and also from many things which have happened in the past week… We need to win games, we have deserved to win games and will try to do it in the next game. We are not yet in November, so we have time to do it (avoid relegation). There are six or seven months until the end of the season. Even if we were in this situation in April, I would not think it was the end of the world.”
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Wolves 2-1 Manchester City
Mick McCarthy: “That result has been coming for a few weeks. We deserved to win today. When you are bottom, but playing well, with a great spirit, it sounds really hollow when you say things like that. But this performance and result summed it all up for me. Without our team spirit, we would be history. I have been saying that for weeks.”
Roberto Mancini: “We only played for the first 25 minutes. We played very well during that period of the game and had four or five chances to score. But then we stopped playing and Wolves deserved to win this game. It was the worst game we have played… This was the sort of game you have to win if you want to challenge for the title. You must play all games at 115 per cent. I must understand very quickly why this happened. But the season is long, we started it very well and there is time to recover.”
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Fulham 2-0 Wigan
Mark Hughes: “We made it easy for ourselves because of the manner of our performance. From the start we were on the front foot… The guys are enjoying the type of football we’re playing and we were rewarded. We felt that maybe we haven’t been getting the points our performances deserve this season. We weren’t worried about dropping down the table but you want to be in the top half when you wake up on a Sunday morning. I feel we are a top 10 side and I won’t be persuaded from that.”
Roberto Martinez: “That felt like our worst performance of the season and we didn’t deserve anything out of it. We came here with no real energy. We looked flat, couldn’t get on the ball and were very weak. Fulham were sharper and brighter. It was one of those performance that we must eradicate from our season. We must make sure it never happens again.”
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Everton 1-0 Stoke City
David Moyes: “It is great for Yak (Yakubu) to get the winning goal. If you work hard I think the supporters appreciate you and your team-mates appreciate you. I think Yak has certainly improved his work and he is starting to feel more confident himself. It would be great if we could get back the old Yakubu… You need your strikers to do something. Top clubs have strikers who do things to win games – Rooney, Drogba, Torres. We needed someone to do something today and it was Yak skipping past and rifling one home… They are an improving side and it is a great three points for us really.”
Tony Pulis: “We are disappointed. We did our best and had a right go. I’m really disappointed with the disallowed goal. It’s a really poor decision which has gone against us again… I thought it was a very even game. It was tight and when you get opportunities in tight games you have to take them… But we have had three really tough games this week. We didn’t get back to Stoke until 3.30 on Thursday morning. Then to come to Goodison Park, which is always a tough place to come, and give the performance we have done, we are very disappointed not to come away with something.”
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