“He's strong and when he's got a sight of goal he thinks about nothing but scoring. Whether he keeps his place and plays at the weekend, though, I don't know. Last time he was injured I was guilty of rushing him back too quickly, so we'll see how he reacts to two hours of football and take it from there.”
“He's been injured most of the season. You saw an awful lot of pent-up emotion when he scored. He's spent a lot of time in the treatment room and gym.”
“Our goalkeeper was the biggest factor. He made four top-quality saves and they also hit the woodwork. Marcus has been terrific for us. He is a terrific kicker and superb shot-stopper. He has the World Cup in his sights [with the USA] and his performances need to reflect that.”
“Complacency is not on our agenda. It is certainly not our biggest danger. My players have worked very hard for what they have achieved so far. They will not allow that to creep in. Neither myself, nor the coaching staff have to do anything to prevent that. They do it themselves.”
“It was a difficult game to evaluate but over the 90 minutes I thought we were the better side. They made it difficult for us and for a while it worked.”
“The players are disappointed because we had good possession and decent chances. We were on the front foot after we scored, but they got the winner from a great bit of skill.”
“In a position where every mistake is costly, I can probably count on the fingers on one hand the times where he would probably argue that he's at fault. And I would probably question a couple of those goals even. He's been terrific defensively and ... his distribution has been very important in our goal scoring.”
