GORDON STRACHAN

Believe me, you need good people if you want to make good players.

I've had to take a lot of stick down the years but the one thing that really got to me was when someone questioned my integrity. It's the one thing that really grates with you.

I've got more important things to think about. I've got a yogurt to finish by today, the expiry date is today.

I did think there were one or two referees who had a personal thing against me. It wasn't them versus Celtic - it was them against me! I just think they wanted to take me on.

I've been in football a long time and people have problems through debt, drugs, drink and family.

I'm just going to crumble like a wreck. I'll go home, become an alcoholic and maybe! jump of a bridge.

I've seen teams spend £150 million and get nowhere near the Champions League. It has taken Manchester City a billion to get there. There are no guarantees.

People think I've got a problem with the press. Actually I have no problem with the press, but just like in football there are a handful who cause problems because they're disrespectful, they're lazy, and above all - and this is what really gets to me - they haven't worked hard to get there.

I like to be able to control which players I'm working with. Because it doesn't matter how good a coach you are if the guys you're working with think they already know it all. You need a response, you need to feel they're trying. I want players who are always striving to improve.

Sometimes to go forward you've got to go to the depths of your own personal despair and claw yourself back. From that point, no matter what happens, you know you can do it.

Fitness is a curve. You can be Lance Armstrong, or you can be really out of shape at the opposite end. People enter the curve wherever they are and then they can move up the curve, by better nutrition and better exercise.

Do I miss football in Scotland? It keeps you really alive, that's for sure. Your heartbeat fluctuates. I'm flatlining at the moment which is actually quite nice but you need to go up and down to stay alive.

I get the feeling a lot of politicians are there to help themselves financially, first and foremost. I don't really need to do that, and I thought if I could do something for sport in Scotland, that would be really fulfilling.

It took me 35 years of being involved at a decent level of football to become manager at a great club like Celtic.

I'm afraid that this is me getting on my high horse now but we have yob television, yob newspapers, and funny enough whereas it was my mum and dad, school, police, church who used to set the standards, now it's tabloids and yob television who set the standards by which people live.

I want players who are always striving to improve.

People talk about footballers and they get a bad press when not all of them deserve it.

All the really good players I know, they all knew right from wrong. So many of them don't learn that at home nowadays.

I'm a better coach now than when I joined Celtic. The longer you stay in any job, the better you become. If you lose your drive, your enthusiasm, your imagination, that experience is no good.

I think what I've actually achieved as a manager does sometimes get a bit overlooked, because all people think about is the media side of things. They tend to forget I've not done so bad.

I get the feeling a lot of politicians are there to help themselves financially, first and foremost.

You need responsibility in life.

The reason I became a manager was to have full control over training. If you are a coach, you are bound by what the manager wants you to coach. The other reason is that I just like the company of football people.

I think if you've managed Celtic or Rangers you can go on to be Prime Minister of Great Britain, it's that hard.

Everybody at Barcelona loves Messi. They can't speak highly of him.