Milan Offer

"Peter Kenyon, the chief executive, was against satisfying my demands.  He made our life hell. I don't think either the owners or Kenyon were aware of my contacts with Milan. We let them know and told them the offer, which was superior to their own and what I was demanding of Chelsea. They wouldn't stump up."

“Chelsea said, for their part, that they wanted to keep me and their offer was still open.  No one knows at what point the stretched-out hand of Chelsea resembles a beautiful package that has nothing inside.”

“In May 2006, I told the Press of Milan’s interest and my desire to leave the club and of the very attractive offer Milan had proposed. This prestigious Italian team were offering me a salary higher than that which I was asking of Chelsea.  Straight away, I was seduced. Not because of the Euros but of the faith a club gives you, the value they put on you.”

L'Equipe Report

"The directors of Milan are interested in me, and I am interested in the idea of going to play over there. Gallas said his request was "not a question of money" amid reports that he has been unhappy playing at full-back, away from his preferred role at centre-back.

"I have been here five years and maybe that's enough. I am a man who wants to win everything and I want to do that in different countries.”  

Mourinho: 

"When I see some quotes from his people and so on saying that Chelsea are blocking a possible move for William then it’s not a possibility.  I think every player has a price but I will keep William here. He is a Chelsea player. Gallas is slightly different, especially for one reason.” 

“For Ashley Cole Arsenal has an offer. Chelsea has not an offer to sell William Gallas. For me that’s what makes a real difference.”

 

The Own Goal

"It's taken time, the negotiations. I've just come to the point where my heart is no longer at Chelsea. You're going to put me on the pitch, OK, but if the heart is not there and I'm not concentrating I risk making errors, errors that I'm not used to making. We could let in a goal, so lose a match stupidly. This is what I said."

“They ignored the truth. For them, I was a player who would score an own-goal. Who cared if I’d given them five years of my life, my passion, a Premier League title to share? They remembered only the mega-false version of their club. I was gutted.”

“When I went back to get my things at Chelsea, the security wouldn’t let me in. Mourinho had given instructions. It was incredible considering I’d given everything to the club for the past five years.

“It was impossible to get my things back. From one day to the next, I’d become a stranger. I had tears in my eyes. I left, my heart broken.”

Wenger

"I never believed that story. You cannot imagine that anybody would do that."

"Frankly, I do not read many footballers' autobiographies but I will read this one,"

Cech

“I know William and if he says it then it is true. I’ve played with him and know him well. William is a great guy and he is passionate about football but I don’t agree players should talk publicly about what is discussed in the dressing room.

“William must have felt very frustrated to want to talk publicly about it. As a person he says what he feels. And that’s why people look at him differently because, when he speaks, it comes from the heart.’’  

Times Fanzone:

On the eve of this high-profile encounter, then, what does our Billy choose to do?  Why, reopen the debate about his departure from his first English club, that’s what.

Gallas had threatened to score an own goal:

Horror of horrors. It’s the sort of thing you’d imagine some hysterical freak of emotional engineering – di Canio, perhaps, or even Drogba – saying. Not Billy, though. He always seemed so quiet. So introspective. Bit of a loner. Just the sort of things that the neighbours tell ITN while the police are uncovering a mass grave 3 doors down.

Some people, conversely, will feel that there’s a very very thin line indeed between “I’ll score an own goal” and “You’ve distracted me so much I’ll probably make a game-losing mistake”. The answer, as always, is somewhere in between, and probably has as much to do with Ricardo Carvalho’s arrival at the club and Mourinho’s natural preference for his protégé.

2 years on, of course, and our cousins up in Highbury and Holloway are finding out just how hysterical young Gallas can be.

Similarities with Ashley Cole:

No one knows how laughable their offer was” says Billy, referring to the money Chelsea put on the table to keep him at the club. Does this remind anyone else of a certain fullback “swerving off the road” at his negligible £55,000 a week? After all, Billy’s on £90k now. That’s over £4.5m a year. Presumably not so laughable.

Reception from Chelsea fans:

We’ll never forget the good times, Billy. Especially that goal against Spurs which, lest you forget, you scored coming forward from your hated left-back slot. But I’m guessing that, this Sunday, we won’t be chanting your name much either. Well, not without a few choice words attached. Which really is a pity.

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