Football: Howard Wilkinson: Words from a previous incarnation
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Your support makes all the difference.1995 If I am ever reincarnated, I'd like to return as a personality
1989
Don't ask me whether it was a good game. It'd be like asking a surgeon if it was a good operation
1995
There's only two types of manager. Those who've been sacked and those who will be sacked in the future
1993
I'm healthy, I've got a house, I eat well - how can I be unhappy? There's thousands with none of these things
1992
Journalists arrived from all over Europe to meet him [Eric Cantona]. He gave interviews on art, philosophy and politics. A natural room-mate for David Batty, I thought immediately (before the rift with Cantona)
1993
The England manager has to fight the system and the press from day one
1990
A myth has grown up that football should in some way strive to be entertaining. Sport is not entertainment. It's an activity for the benefit of the participants. If you run away from that you risk having the wrong pipers calling the tune
1996
A manager is not self-employed. If he's not in the directors' hands, he's in the players' hands. And if he's not in the players' hands, he's in the fans' hands (days before sacking by Leeds)
1992
Life has to be lived forwards, but can only be viewed backwards (slogan on Hoddle's office wall)
... and how others see him
1996
Wilko for England! Leeds fans' chant during 5-0 defeat at Liverpool
1991
There are bigger heads than mine in the First Division. Howard Wilkinson's springs to mind Brian Clough
1999 At the end [of his team talks] we'd be thinking: `Eh?' David Batty
1996
Batty is a really good player, a good passer. Howard Wilkinson curbed his style at Leeds, made Batts more disciplined than expansive
Kenny Dalglish
1992
There's a great deal of psychology involved in running a football team and Howard understands the psyche of the modern player better than most.
Howard Kendall, after Leeds' Championship season
1994
His comments were strange and rather incoherent. One moment he would tell me that he wants me to know that I owe everything to him, that I am only a Frenchman lost in the English League, and at other times he would say that without me, the team is nothing
Eric Cantona
1992
Preparation was, and still is, an obsession with Wilkinson... At Wednesday, I got the impression he thought he could transform a squad of competent players into a team capable of competing with the best. He also believed he could transform the fortunes of problem players
Lee Chapman
1998
I know it sounds nuts, but I thought I was signing for Howard Kendall. He was the only Howard I'd really heard of
Vinnie Jones
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