Alex Stepney, “If you can get away with anything in football, especially for a goalkeeper, you need a bit of luck and you’ve got to go with it. I would never have owned up and said ‘no, that was a goal’. I’d have done exactly the same as Roy. You play on until the referee makes the decision.
Gordon Taylor, “Alex (Ferguson) would have been thrilled with him saying it was a goal, I’m sure. He wouldn’t have been best pleased as it was, but that would have made it even worse. That’s starting to be naive because there are so many rubs of the green where you don’t get what you feel you should get, and you hope it balances out. Playing on like Roy did shouldn’t be a burden on a particular player.”
Taylor also voiced his support for the introduction of video evidence, "We have been advocating this for quite a while. It has been successful in cricket, in tennis and it is something football as a whole could benefit from. The game is too big now - it is the biggest game in the world, and we shouldn't be afraid to use technology to advance the sport in this manner.
"When it is a goal it is important that the team who scored is credited with it. Any change which can improve the game has to be welcomed. These kind of incidents can make a massive difference to teams over the course of a season and it is important we get them right."
The linesman who didn’t see the ‘goal’, Rob Lewis, "I was doing my primary job, which was to stand in line with the last defender and watch for offside. I pride myself on being relatively fast over a short distance but by the time the ball landed, I was still 25 yards away from goal and it was impossible from that distance to judge if it had crossed the line.
"I could not have guessed because you have to be 100% sure on such important decisions. I am disappointed because I always like to get decisions right. But I have thought about it a lot since the incident and there was nothing I could have done differently - apart from run faster than Linford Christie.
"My view, and I think it is shared by most referees, is that for matter of fact issues like whether the ball has crossed the line, technology should be introduced. Any decision where the law states 'in the opinion of' should be left as they are."
Tottenham keeper Paul Robinson has backed Roy Carroll, “I do feel for Roy. It was a difficult ball to deal with in the first place and it was also a very cold and blustery night, so the conditions were certainly not ideal.
“I know goalkeepers do tend to stick together anyway but I have quite a bit of sympathy for Roy over this.
“I was so far away from our `goal' there was no way I could have offered an opinion until I saw it on TV. But I have to say I thought the tackle on Rio was inside the area, so if the referee thought it was a foul we were lucky to get away with the free-kick.
“It just shows these things can work both ways, although you have to say the incident at our end was not as clear-cut as the one at theirs. We really should have scored.''
Serial twat Jeff Winter, “Roy Carroll could just have put his hand up and told the ref it was a goal, couldn’t he? People might laugh at that but why not?”