Blackburn Rovers 1-1 Manchester United
Steve Kean: “I can understand the fans’ frustration because they want us to go and press and get the ball back. We are left with a scenario at the end of the game when Paul Scholes is on the pitch and Manchester United are running down the clock. But when you look at the other end, they have left four players up with no intention of dropping back again. It gives us a dilemma. Do we go and push and try and get a goal, whilst also leaving ourselves wide open to having four on their own up at the other end.”
Sir Alex Ferguson: “It is not fair to say it’s a bad Manchester United team or a bad league. It is a tighter league, a harder league to win. Any campaign has got blips for anyone. You have got to look at the league in general. Let’s not get carried away. The treble season was something special. I don’t think anyone will ever do it again.
“We made a go at it, as a manager of the club, you have to try that. But I didn’t think it would happen. I thought we would get knocked out (of a competition) somewhere along the line. Fortunately it was the one you would want to win least of all because the Premier League and the Champions League are paramount.
“It’s not so much passing Liverpool. That thing about knocking Liverpool off their perch, I don’t think I actually said it, but it’s more important that United are the best team in the country in terms of winning titles. Same with the FA Cup. We have won it more times than everyone and now we have won the Premier League more times than anyone.”
Blackpool 4-3 Bolton Wanderers
Ian Holloway: “That’s four games unbeaten, and anyone who’s seen the last four games can tell that Blackpool are back and looking like we did at the start of the season. That was really important to us. Blow me down with this fairytale we’re all on, this story that has been unfolding for the last two years. We’ve got to go to Manchester United and probably get a win, and that might not even be enough. I believe it will be, though, because Wolves are at home to Blackburn. I’ve had some strange things happen in my life and maybe the main man up there has written a story that would probably beat Cinderella.”
Owen Coyle: “It was Blackpool’s day and all credit to them, they were clinical, but I thought they got the bounce of the ball and the little decisions. I’m always loath to see players sent off in games but Gary Taylor-Fletcher‘s had a terrible lunge at Lee Chung-yong right on the edge of the box. The officials have let that go, then two minutes later Gary Cahill is booked for a challenge on Charlie Adam. If they’re going to book Gary Cahill then I find it beyond belief that Gary Taylor-Fletcher stayed on the pitch.”
Sunderland 1-3 Wolverhampton Wanderers
Mick McCarthy: “It’s the same three points as last week. I said it would go to May 22 and it’s going there, isn’t it? Nobody can do anything about it. Everybody has been in your earhole – the media, mums, dads, kids, friends. ‘If this happens’, ‘If that happens’. Just win our game. If we win our game, then nobody can do anything about it, and the same applies on Sunday against Blackburn … We got slapped and we had to certainly improve and up our game, which we did, and I think second half, we deserved to win, to be honest with you.”
Steve Bruce on John Mensah‘s angry reaction to being substituted: “Things like that happen in football. He’s got a good right to be disappointed – I was disappointed in his second-half performance. Things happen in the heat of the game. He is understandably upset, he didn’t want to come off – we will deal with that and we will live with that and we will move on. In his eyes, he did not give a jot who was coming on. He was just thinking one thing, total disappointment in himself, which happens in the heat of the moment. The one thing about John Mensah is he is a highly respectable man. However in his actions today, he has let himself down.”
West Bromwich Albion 1-0 Everton
Roy Hodgson: “This group of players I have inherited have done a fantastic job for the club, they’ve done a fantastic job for me. I’ve got to make sure all the credit for what we’ve achieved goes to all the players that are here. But Dan Ashworth and the scouting staff must take all the credit for Odemwingie and Mulumbu and any other players you care to mention. They are players that come into the club for relatively small amounts of money and have succeeded. It is almost impossible to make every signing a winner. But, if you get it right, in the way he’s got it right with Mulumbu and Odemwingie, he’s going to be very happy.”
David Moyes refused to speak to the media, as he was reportedly unhappy at decisions made by referee Anthony Taylor.
Eurospor
