Rio Ferdinand, Roy Keane and Arsene Wenger in our daftest football quotes of the year for 2008

"Our club captain Gary Neville's been out for a year now, but Giggsy has taken up the mantelpiece" - RIO FERDINAND

"'I'm sure the mantelpiece of captaincy will suit Wayne Rooney" - RIO FERDINAND

"Someone now has to step up and take on the mantelpiece" - RIO FERDINAND

"I'm not going to make any predictions for tonight - except that England will win 3-0" - MIKE PARRY

"There are kids out there who'd chop their legs off to play football for Brighton" - ROBBIE SAVAGE

"Managing in a foreign country will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience that doesn't come along that often" - STEVE McCLAREN

"Had Taylor not broken Eduardo's leg with that tackle we'd have said 'that's a leg- breaking tackle'" - MATT LE TISSIER

"Stoke are fourth in the Championship, and you can't ask for more than that" - MARK BRIGHT

"You always lose when your opponents score and you don't" - RAYMOND DOMENECH

"Sometimes you have to swallow the unswallowable" - ARSENE WENGER

"Arsenal haven't won anything for three years, so they're used to success" - GLENN HODDLE

"It's like trying to put a needle through a small hole" - ALAN SMITH

"Fernando Torres' English seems to be coming on good" - ANDY TOWNSEND

"Ian Ashby is very underrated and it's right he gets the accolades he gets" - PAUL MERSON

"Let's hope it's not a case of sore grapes" - ALAN BRAZIL

"I told Camara 'We're not interested in what's happened to you before, we just want you to reproduce what you did four years ago'" - STEVE BRUCE

"I read Michael Caine's biography. It was about him growing up" - FRANK LAMPARD

"If I have to move on from Newcastle, hopefully it will be to somewhere else" - JOE KINNEAR

"It's only a must-win game if you need to win it" -ROY AITKEN

"Brian Laws has lifted his team out of precocious waters" - ALVIN MARTIN

"Our qualifying campaign was a successful failure" - KENNY MILLER

"Berbatov can see things with the outside of his boot" - ALVIN MARTIN

"Some players need a boot up their backside. Other players need the arm" - ALAN BRAZIL

"The three of them will be acting in tandem" - PETER BEARDSLEY

"In this game, you've got to keep hitting the ball back over the net" - SIMON JORDAN

"I'm English, without a doubt. I will never ever say I'm not English. English born and bred. I'm Turkish, though" - COLIN KAZIM-RICHARDS

"I can't remember anything about my first-ever goal. It was against Oldham, Andy Goram was in goal, Alan Irvine crossed it for me and we won 3-2" - IAN WRIGHT

"After that goal you could literally see Arsenal's players deflating" -MICKY QUINN

"It's a one-off game over two legs" - PAUL ELLIOTT

"Stephen Hunt's goals are priceless… that's why he's worth £4million" - ALAN McINALLY

"Rafa Benitez will be keeping at least two eyes on the Champions League"- DJ SPOONY

"They're going to bring on a couple of substitutes, probably from the bench" - DAVID PLEAT

"Stoke are defending like beavers" - CHRIS KAMARA

"Chelsea are playing with much more refreshingness" - GLENN HODDLE

"They're giving as good as they give" - PAUL MERSON

"I've sat on the hot seat and I felt its hotness" - BOBBY GOULD

"Bob Paisley once pinned a map on the wall and never said a single word to us. 'Just take a look at that', he said" - GRAEME SOUNESS

"Get your players on who can unlock the door and sooner or later they will break the door down" - TIM SHERWOOD

"Albert Riera looks like the full McCoy" - STEVE CLARIDGE

"They've kicked our backsides. Now we've got to lick our wounds" - STEVE BRUCE

"Chelsea aren't playing in what I like to call the corners of the pitch" - GRAHAM TAYLOR

"Leeds are taking Chester to the sword" - ANDY RITCHIE

"It finished Charlton 2, Swansea 0... not a bad result for either side" - ANDREW McKENNA

"This sums up the ridiculum of the situation" - STAN COLLYMORE

"Fraizer Campbell has two great feet... left and right" - MARK BRIGHT

"That's Arsenal. They're either brilliant or inconsistent" - JAMIE REDKNAPP

"Man City have put a spanner in the waves" - MIKE PARRY

"If the Liverpool board are going to wash their dirty linen in public they should do it behind closed doors" - PHIL THOMPSON

"I wouldn't touch Chimbonda with a barn door" -ALAN BRAZIL

"Last year's title race was a bit of a damp squid." - MARK HATELEY

"Without using cliches, we're taking it one step at a time" - NEWCASTLE BID FIXER KEITH HARRIS

"I'm like a new stranger to the players" - JOE KINNEAR

"Aston Villa are breathing down their throats" - KENNY CUNNINGHAM

"Lady luck is trying his best for Liverpool" - STEVE CLARIDGE

"Sky gets its money from prescription payers" - MARTIN KEOWN

"Too often, we've been on the losing end of a defeat" - ROY KEANE

"Servet is literally, literally right up his backside" - ANDY TOWNSEND

"I'd compare myself to Zinedine Zidane… a humble guy who just happened to be the best" - NICOLAS ANELKA

"Man City have scored in all of their home wins this year" - ROB HAWTHORNE

"The gaffer says he's backing me to the hills" - CAMERON JEROME

"Us winning that game might stop people saying 'Newcastle have not won under Kevin Keegan'" - KEVIN KEEGAN

"He's already on a yellow card, so now he's really treading the boards" - JOHN SALAKO

"I don't predict in football. But next week you will see a vastly different Norwich City" - GLENN ROEDER

"David Nugent tore up the Championship but he's gone to Portsmouth and he's a fish up a tree" - PAUL MERSON

"The English manager I most admire is Arsene Wenger. Even if he is not English" - PHIL SCOLARI

"The Arsenal youth team is full of young players" - ROBBIE EARLE

"What happened? I cannot explanate it" - EMMANUEL ADEBAYOR