Responding to a question about his team-mates from 1999 in an interview in the Sunday Times:
"Well, they were all young lads, weren't they? And they're all still playing, but they're being described as experienced players now! Someone said to me the other day that Scholes is 32 now, but I still think of him as 22."
"Solskjaer has retired," I observe. "Yeah, that was a shame because you can tell in every interview he does that all he wants to do is play football. You know how he did his knee, don't you?" he asks.
"No." "Do you remember when he slid on his knees after scoring the winning goal in the European final? Well, that's when he felt it. I remember him coming in after the game when everyone was celebrating and saying, 'I think I've hurt my knee'. And since then he's had a problem. It's a shame. He's a fantastic lad and probably the best all-round finisher I ever played with.
"Now people will look at that and say, 'What? Better than Shearer? Better than Klinsmann?' But in terms of right foot, left foot and heading, he knew exactly where the goal was. He would put the ball through people's legs and in the corners. Brilliant."
"Yorke and Cole are at Sunderland," I point out.
"Yeah." "How do you think Roy Keane has done as a manager?"
"I think he's done great; I've been really impressed by him. He has that manner about him; he just looks like a manager, doesn't he? He stands there and looks like he has been doing it for years."
"He hasn't called you?" "No," he says. "You're probably the only one he hasn't called."
"Well, he did want to sign me," he reveals.
"He did?" "Yeah, it was quite weird. It was that conversation I had with Curbishley . . . I said, 'Well, if you won't let me go to Charlton, where will you let me go?' And he said, 'Well, I've had no phone calls about you . . . I had one phone call when I first got the job and I told them you weren't available'. I said, 'Who was that, if you don't mind me asking?' He said, 'Well, Keaney was asking about you going up to Sunderland'. I said, 'Really? Bloody hell!'
He shakes his head and smiles at the memory.
"Okay, so you know what the obvious question is?"
"Would I have gone?" "Yeah." "It's hard to say, isn't it?" "Come on!" I exclaim. "No sitting on the fence."
"I really don't know," he says. "There was talk at one point that Mark Hughes was interested in me going to Blackburn, but I thought, 'Do I want to be travelling up and down again?' I don't know."
"So when Keane rants about Wags and the clothes shops and trying to get players to Sunderland, is he making a valid point?"
"Of course it's a valid point. It's a fantastic point. The question he is asking is: what do they want to do with their life? Do they want to be footballers or coast along? Do they want to play for a fantastic football club like Sunderland? Or do they want to wait round for a club in London so they can go shopping on days off?"