Ten Classic Football Quotations made by Football Players

The best-dressed footballer I've ever seen. Even in training - we're all in tracksuits and he arrives in shirt, trousers and shoes. And his hair's lovely. We call him The Dog, as in the dogs bollocks - ROBERT LEE, Newcastle midfielder talking about his defensive colleague Warren Barton, 1996.

I don't mind Roy Keane making £60,000 a week. I was making the same when I was playing. The only difference is I was printing my own - MICKEY THOMAS, former Manchester United midfielder with a conviction for counterfeiting currency, 2002.

We call him Germ. He always has a cold or something - DARREN HUCKERBY, talking about fellow Leeds striker Michael Bridges, 1999.

What is the world coming to when you get a red card and fined two weeks' wages for calling a grown man a wanker? It's an adults' game - what's wrong with a bit of industrial language in the workplace? - PAUL GASCOIGNE, after being sent off for Middlesborough v. Chelsea, 2000.

I started the shirt-lifting thing and I'm still the best at it - FABRIZIO RAVANELLI, struggling with colloquialisms at Derby, 2002.

My team-mates at Chelsea have very funny ways of celebrating. In France, when it's your birthday, they buy you champagne and cake.
Here they just shove your face in mud. Very strange - FRANK LEBOEUF, Chelsea defender, 1999.

My only problem seems to be with Italian breakfasts. No matter how much money you've got, you can't seem to get any Rice Krispies - LUTHER BLISSETT, after his transfer from Watford to Milan, 1983.

When I saw the pictures of what I did I was ashamed. The worst thing was when people phoned my girlfriend, who's six months pregnant, and said: 'What's it like living with a lunatic?' - JOHN HARTSON, after kicking West Ham colleague Eyal Berkovic in the head during training, 1998.

This is a man's game - unless the FA want us to walk out carrying handbags and wearing lipstick. 'Chopper' Harris and Tommy Smith wouldn't have lasted two minutes the way the game is run today - PAUL INCE, Middlesborough midfielder, 2001.

What facinates me - and this is probably where Mussolini and I are very different - is the way he was able to go against his morals to achieve his goals - PAOLO DI CANIO, West Ham's Italian striker and a self-confessed admirer of the late Italian fascist leader, 2000.