Israel Saria
Managerial reaction after Saturday’s Premier League matches, as Arsene Wenger refuses to be drawn on the future of William Gallas, who was dropped and stripped of the captaincy for the 3-0 defeat at Manchester City.
Manchester City 3-0 Arsenal
Mark Hughes: “It was a fantastic finish by Robinho. When he is one v one with the goalkeeper you expect him to score. He will always demand the ball in key areas of the field and it was a great performance by him. Considering he only turned up from training yesterday, he was exceptional.”
Arsene Wenger: “Of course he has a future at the club. I will not speak about William Gallas in a post-match interview. He is a player who did not play today, so what can he do? Nothing. Why should we not talk about [Cesc] Fabregas and the other nine players who are not here. We can go on until midnight and I will give the same answer to the same question.”
Chelsea 0-0 Newcastle United
Luiz Felipe Scolari: “I said congratulations to the coach and his team. They had a strategy to draw and it worked. We have now lost nine points at home. We had two or three chances to score and we didn’t – this is football.”
Joe Kinnear: “Scolari congratulated me which was very kind of him. I make no apology for playing for a draw. In the last three days we’ve been planning to force Chelsea to play in front of us, which I thought we did very well.”
Liverpool 0-0 Fulham
Rafael Benitez: “It was a bad day, we did not have enough energy and we did not pass the ball well enough. And then when we got back into the dressing room we discovered that Chelsea had drawn and Arsenal had lost.”
Roy Hodgson: “It was ironic the three players who had the longest trips, Brede Hangeland to the Ukraine, John Pantsil to Ghana and Mark Schwarzer to Bahrain, were the ones who played the best. If that is how they play after internationals abroad, maybe I should be happy for them to go every week.”
Middlesbrough 1-3 Bolton
Gareth Southgate: “We didn’t deserve anything from the game and we made the wrong decisions too many times. When you have a start like that you give yourselves a mountain to climb. We didn’t make the game simple enough and sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say they deserve it.”
Gary Megson: “I must admit in all my time as a player and a manager I’ve never been more pleased for someone to score. It has taken a huge amount of pressure off Johan which I felt was a bit unfair. He did the same today as he’s done in nearly every game for us. His quality is exceptional and his workrate is exceptional. Now people will start looking at him in a different way because of the goal he’s scored.”
Portsmouth 2-2 Hull City
Tony Adams: “It was an own-goal today as far as we’re concerned – down to Noe [Pamarot] I’m afraid. But we had enough chances to win this one, although I always thought we needed a two-goal cushion to make sure.”
Brian Horton (Hull assistant): “Try taking it off Deano [Dean Windass, aged 40]. When the ball came in he had to get some pace on it and to my mind he did that and he’s certainly claiming it.”
Stoke City 1-0 West Brom
Tony Pulis: “Tony [Mowbray] has only got to speak for his own side. They’ve not had a shot on goal, so I can understand where he is coming from. I thought we played some good stuff today.”
Tony Mowbray: “I don’t want to be harsh but I thought it was a pretty dross game of football. I don’t think there was too much to talk about, it was a pretty poor match.”
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