A few days before his Old Trafford return, here are some of the more memorable quotes about David Beckham.

"Never, never, never, never. Nothing, never, never, never. Not now. Not ever" - Real Madrid chairman Florentino Perez insisting the club would not sign Beckham. One month later, they did.

"Maybe he's not a leader, maybe he's not a captain. Fair enough. But at a minimum you should bust your ass every day. That hasn't happened. And I don't think that's too much for us to expect" - Los Angeles Galaxy team-mate Landon Donovan. He eventually apologised for airing his opinions in a book.

"Beckham will train with the team but he won't play. He has always been a great professional but if a player has such an important contract with another club you cannot count on him. You can't have the same enthusiasm when your mind is on other things" - Fabio Capello, then manager of Real Madrid, after Beckham agreed to join the Galaxy later that year.

"The truth is that with him (Beckham) we made a mistake. Beckham is a great player. Now he is playing at the same level as he did at Manchester (United)" - Capello, three months later, after Beckham had played a key role in securing the la Liga title for Real Madrid.

"I've got the job and I want to approach it my way and make my decisions and live or die by them. There was certainly no commercial pressure to keep David Beckham in the squad. It is a football decision and I think everybody around the country and in the FA respected the decision I made" - Steve McClaren after dropping Beckham from his first international squad.

"That's all you'll get from David Beckham. The reaction from every adversity he's ever gone through in his career, he's always bounced back and been professional and got on with his job" - McClaren after recalling Beckham for England.

"Our job is to concentrate on the football match and let the David Beckham media circus carry on - we know we're not going to stop it anyway" - Sir Alex Ferguson on Beckham's return to Old Trafford.

"He was never a problem until he got married. He used to go into work with the academy coaches at night time, he was a fantastic young lad. Getting married into that entertainment scene was a difficult thing - from that moment, his life was never going to be the same. He is such a big celebrity, football is only a small part" - Ferguson in 2007 speaking about Beckham's marriage to Spice Girl Victoria Beckham (nee Adams).