From Jose Mourinho’s admission that Tottenham were not exactly racehorses in the title chase to Gary Neville’s television tirade against the European Super League, there were plenty of memorable quotes in 2020-21.
As the Premier League season comes to an end, the PA news agency picks out the best soundbites from the campaign.
“I think the never having been relegated thing – to lose that would kill me if we did go down.” – Sam Allardyce embarked on his latest rescue mission with West Brom.
“That was history – but obviously the wrong type.” – Lessons learnt as Jurgen Klopp surveyed the wreckage of Liverpool’s 7-2 home defeat by Aston Villa.
“We’re not even in the race so we’re not a horse. We’re a pony.” – Mourinho’s cockney rhyming slang was coming along nicely.
“It hurts more, not less, to have this result again.” – Ralph Hasenhuttl after Southampton’s second 9-0 trouncing in consecutive seasons, this time at Manchester United.
“Normally I have three weeks off and eat potato salad.” – West Ham’s Czech midfielder Tomas Soucek revealed his usual Christmas routine.
“If that was my son and he stays down and he needs his mates to help him up, he doesn’t get food because that’s embarrassing.” – A stark warning for Noah Solskjaer.
“I think as a father you have always to feed your kids.” – Mourinho weighed in with parenting tips.
“Like we say in Portugal, bread is bread and cheese is cheese.” – And then the outgoing Tottenham boss offered this pearl of wisdom.
“Heston Blumenthal, who mixes chocolate with eggs or something stupid and outrageous. Pep is nearly the Heston Blumenthal of football.” – Talking of food, David Moyes let slip that he has never baked a chocolate cake.
“Lookie-likeys make the world go round.” – Sean Dyche’s press conference also drifted off topic.
“Mine and my coaching staff’s methods are second to nobody in the world.” – Four defeats in a row for Spurs did not dent Mourinho’s self-belief.
“Twelve of Europe’s leading football clubs have today come together to announce they have agreed to establish a new midweek competition, the Super League, governed by its founding clubs.” – A sleepy Sunday was livened up by this joint statement.
This lot think they can sweep up £300m more each season than the other teams and then wander back on a Saturday and play with that advantage in the PL . Deduct points , fine heavily and embargo transfers. I hope they haven’t bought some of the other 14 clubs. #stopthesuperleague— Gary Neville (@GNev2) April 19, 2021
“I’m disgusted by Manchester United and Liverpool the most. Liverpool, they pretend ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone,’ the people’s club, the fans’ club. Manchester United – 100 years, born out of workers. And they are breaking away into a league without competition, that they can’t be relegated from? It is an absolute disgrace.” – The proposal did not sit well with Gary Neville.
“It’s amazing the amount of uproar that comes into the game when someone’s pocket is being hurt. It’s a shame it’s not like this with everything that’s going wrong in the game, like racism.” – Leeds striker Patrick Bamford put the whole furore into perspective.
“We made a mistake, and we apologise for it.” – Two days later the project had collapsed and the apologies began, this one from Arsenal.
“We put in a good show, we gave it everything we’ve got.” – Mercifully, relegation did not prove fatal for Allardyce, but he will not lead West Brom’s next bid to return to the top flight.
“We drank a bit, we danced, we hugged a lot, we remembered how good it was. Then at 11.30pm, 15 pizzas arrived and that was the best moment of the night.” – Guardiola let his hair down, so to speak, as Manchester City celebrated winning the title.
