{"id":693015,"date":"2026-05-25T06:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T06:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/693015\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T06:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T06:58:10","slug":"the-best-quotes-of-the-football-season-from-roy-keane-hallgrimsson-messi-and-more-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/693015\/","title":{"rendered":"The best quotes of the football season from Roy Keane, Hallgr\u00edmsson, Messi and more \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bouncing: \u201cThere are two kinds of people: people that are vacuums and people that are batteries, who give energy, joy, enthusiasm. And he is the biggest battery I have ever worked with.\u201d \u2013 Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson<\/a> on the Duracell Bunny that is S\u00e9amus Coleman<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Doomed: \u201cI feel the players are always thinking about the past. They think there is something in the water here or in the food.\u201d \u2013 Ruben Amorim<\/a> after Manchester United<\/a> were knocked out of the League Cup by minnows Grimsby Town. <\/p>\n

Daylight robbery: \u201cI can only congratulate those in Stuttgart for finding an idiot who paid that much money.\u201d \u2013 Karl-Heinz Rummenigge on Newcastle United deciding to pay the German club \u20ac75m for Nick Woltemade.<\/p>\n

Old pals: \u201cMourinho told me that I was a piece of sh*t. I told him that he was a sh*t. An enormous one.\u201d \u2013 Henrikh Mkhitaryan reminiscing about his loving relationship with Jos\u00e9 Mourinho<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Home (dis)comforts: \u201cI really enjoy being alone. The mess at home with the three kids running around everywhere ends up saturating me and I like a moment of solitude. I\u2019m weirder than sh*t.\u201d \u2013 Lionel Messi<\/a> on the joys of family life. <\/p>\n

Brit-bashing: \u201cFor the first time in history, no Brit was arrested during a World Cup! Imagine! This is something really, really special.\u201d \u2013 Fifa president Gianni Infantino<\/a>, talking about how peaceful the Qatar World Cup was, not quite endearing himself to Blighty. <\/p>\n

Great Scott: \u201cAfter my father, McTominay is the most influential player in Napoli\u2019s history. In Naples, we had God \u2013 for me, McTominay is Jesus.\u201d \u2013 Diego Maradona Jnr genuflects at the feet of Scott.<\/p>\n

\"NapoliNapoli midfielder Scott McTominay has found great form since leaving Manchester United. Photograph: Piero Cruciatti\/Getty <\/p>\n

Beyond compare: \u201cIt\u2019s like comparing a painter to Van Gogh.\u201d \u2013 Pep Guardiola<\/a> on the suggestion that Lamine Yamal has reached Lionel Messi levels.<\/p>\n

No-hoper: \u201cWe say in Portugal, \u2018Miracles is only in Fatima\u2019 … and he\u2019s not gonna do miracles.\u201d \u2013 Cristiano Ronaldo<\/a> not quite expecting Ruben Amorim to bring back glory days at Manchester United. Ronaldo was right. <\/p>\n

Bleak future: \u201cHe will have to get Liverpool into the top four \u2013 otherwise he\u2019ll be the next Tottenham manager.\u201d \u2013 Paul Merson forecasts a dismal downfall for Arne Slot if Liverpool<\/a> didn\u2019t click. They finished fifth. <\/p>\n

Match of the season: \u201cIt was like Godzilla versus King Kong.\u201d \u2013 Paolo di Canio excellently sums up that epic PSG v Bayern Munich game.<\/p>\n

Do your job: \u201cIt was a nice finish. Sorry, but isn\u2019t that what he is supposed to do. It\u2019s like Ryanair. If a flight is on time, everyone is cheering. But usually you\u2019re going to be two hours late. You have low expectations. That\u2019s Sesko and United.\u201d \u2013 Roy Keane<\/a> with, undoubtedly, the analogy of the season.<\/p>\n

Old Bhoy: \u201cI was 73 on Monday, and I\u2019m 94 now\u2026 They got me a tracksuit. I\u2019ve got these really tight pants. I look like Robin Hood.\u201d \u2013 Martin O\u2019Neill<\/a> who, despite those tight pants, led his band of merry men to a league and cup double.<\/p>\n

\"MartinMartin O’Neill, manager of Celtic, lifts the Scottish Premiership trophy. Photograph: Ian MacNicol\/Getty <\/p>\n

Meltdown: \u201cThe Third Apocalypse.\u201d \u2013 La Gazzetta dello Sport responds calmly to Italy\u2019s failure to qualify for a third successive World Cup.<\/p>\n

No contest: \u201cWe should respect Armenia. It\u2019s like Iceland when we go to Eurovision: we always think we have the best song, but we never go to the qualifying round.\u201d \u2013 Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson before that hiccup in Yerevan. In the end, we didn\u2019t make it to the World Cup or Eurovision.<\/p>\n

Time out: \u201cI\u2019m going to stop after this stage with City because I need to focus on myself. I want to watch the cows go by when the train goes by.\u201d \u2013 Pep Guardiola in August. Plenty of time for cow-watching now. <\/p>\n

Treasure hunt: \u201cYou keep digging, digging, digging and you have to be digging because one day the gold is going to be there.\u201d \u2013 Mikel Arteta<\/a> at the beginning of the season. In the end? A gold-standard campaign for Arsenal<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bouncing: \u201cThere are two kinds of people: people that are vacuums and people that are batteries, who give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[3361,64,63,36456,596,13202,90970,5996,121458,7886,1525,338132,8316,24938,53958,1532,338131,85],"class_list":["post-693015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-arsenal","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cristiano-ronaldo","tag-football","tag-gianni-infantino","tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","tag-jose-mourinho","tag-lionel-messi","tag-liverpool-fc","tag-manchester-united","tag-martin-o-neill","tag-mikel-arteta","tag-pep-guardiola","tag-roy-keane","tag-ruben-amorim","tag-seamus-coleman","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}