30 pieces of wisdom from football managers

Searching for the answers for life’s big questions? Well, we find that alongside DJs (for there isn’t a problem they can’t fix) and The A-Team (if we can find them of course), football managers are generally good for a nugget of wisdom or three.

That and the fact that we don’t understand half of what these so-called philosophers and other supposed bright sparks are saying half the time.

But then who needs academic intelligence when you’ve got Brian Clough’s bon mots? And as he sagely noted: I don’t remember Freud winning a European Cup final.

Read, take inspiration, be better, do good. In that order.

(All images: Rex Features)

Brian Clough

“Who the hell wants fourteen pairs of shoes when you go on holiday? I haven't had fourteen pairs in my life.”

Bill Nicholson

‘It is better to fail aiming high than to succeed aiming low. And we of Spurs have set our sights very high, so high in fact that even failure will have in it an echo of glory.’

Gordon Strachan

“If a Frenchman goes on about seagulls, trawlers and sardines, he’s called a philosopher. I’d just be called a short Scottish bum talking crap.”

Brian Clough

“You don't want roast beef and Yorkshire every night and twice on Sunday.”

Sir Alex Ferguson

"When an Italian tells me it's pasta on the plate I check under the sauce to make sure. They are the inventors of the smokescreen."

Sam Allardyce

"There are scientists who will tell you that spirit, because it can't be measured, doesn't exist. Bollocks. It does exist"

Jose Mourinho

"There is no pressure at the top. The pressure's being second or third."

Johan Cruyff

"It is better to fail with your own vision than to fail with another man's vision."

Bill Shankly

"If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing."

Sven Goran Eriksson

"The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure."

Howard Wilkinson

"As one door closes, another one shuts."

Arrigo Sacchi

"You don't have to have been a horse to be a jockey."

Sir Alex Ferguson

"I think it’s important to work and I’m entitled to work. Some people do not want to work but I want to continue working”

Bob Paisley

"It is nice to be important, but it is also important to be nice."

Arsene Wenger

"Nobody has enough talent to live on talent alone. Even when you have talent, a life without work goes nowhere."

Arsene Wenger

"Any man who concentrates his energies totally on one passion is, by definition, someone who hurts the people close to him."

Sir Matt Busby

“If they are good enough, they are old enough.”

Graham Taylor

“Very few of us have any idea whatsoever of what life is like living in a goldfish bowl – except, of course, for those of us who are goldfish.”

Ian Holloway

“It’s all very well having a great pianist playing but it’s no good if you haven’t got anyone to get the piano on the stage in the first place, otherwise the pianist would be standing there with no bloody piano to play.”

Gerard Houllier

“"One of the things I am in the habit of saying is that the only place success comes before work is in the dictionary."

Otto Rehhagel

"There are no right or wrong, or fair results. There's just the final score."

Bobby Robson

"If we start counting our chickens before they hatch, they won't lay any eggs in the basket."

Sir Alf Ramsey

“Never change a winning team.”

Sir Matt Busby

"Winning isn't everything. There should be no conceit in victory and no despair in defeat."

Jock Stein

"There's nothing wrong with losing your temper for the right reasons."

Dave Bassett

“The past is history.”

Ron Greenwood

"Being given chances, and not taking them. That's what life is all about."

Marcello Lippi

“There should be no prima donnas on a team, everyone should feel important from the oldest player to the youngest.”

Gordon Strachan

“Always wear a white shirt so nobody sees you sweat.”

Ian Holloway

'If you're a burglar, it's no good poncing about outside somebody's house, looking good with your swag bag ready. Just get in there, burgle them and come out. I don't advocate that obviously, it's just an analogy.'