Defensive Resilience Quotes

At Ajax, I got an education in how to be confident on the ball, my technique, and then, at Atletico, I learned how to defend. It was about the details, the ruthlessness; be clinical in front of your own goal, win every duel, be clever. I learned so much and, defensively, I grew there so much.

When a team goes down to 10 men, it makes you go and attack the game, push bodies forward, and create extra numbers.

In my time at Arsenal, we had a really good balance. We had players who were fast, players who were really strong physically, and players who were really creative. When you look at the generation of Arsenal at the moment, they may be playing better football than we used to, but they win less than we used to - so, where's the balance?

A compact defense has always been the basis of Italy's team.

Once Liverpool go ahead, they are dangerous because it becomes hard to find space to break them down, especially if you are not playing all that brilliantly.

The Italians are very strong defensively. They showed in Euro 2000 how good defensively they are.

I think I'm a great defender, to be honest.

I've always liked taking the ball out of defence and I will carry on doing that but at the end of the day I'm a defender, and that's what I want to be known as - a defender, getting in the blocks and the headers that people don't recognise I do, the dirty stuff that every defender should do and should be good at.

Everyone thinks I'm looking for attacking football all the time. But the foundation is how you defend - keep a clean sheet, and you have a decent chance to win a game of football.

When it does not click offensively, it is very easy to get down defensively.

I'm a defender first and foremost - blocks, headers, vital tackles, or even just the communication side of it, which is massive but doesn't really get recognised.

Concentrate on defense because the offense will come.

Regardless of how well you can be offensively, if you have a great defense, you can deal with any offense.

I think if you're not conceding so many goals, it gives you a great platform to win games.

Most of the clubs who have had success against Barcelona have relied on a highly organised and disciplined defence.

For the life of me, I'll never understand why the teams that have the best defences get criticised. Shouldn't clean sheets be a badge of honour for defenders and goalkeepers?

I like consistency in defenders.

I love to see goals and attacking play; I want us to be entertaining. But it's no good if you're shipping goals.

For me, it is very important to control a situation in defence. You can always score goals, but you have to add stability in the defence.

Usually, a team of Claudio is really very solid. They usually defend very well, sometimes low, but very well.

Real Madrid are like a rabbit in the glare of the headlights in the face of Manchester United's attacks. But this rabbit comes with a suit of armour in the shape of two precious away goals.

I really wanted to step up my defense night in, night out. So that's my mindset, just playing defense and trying to be consistent with that.

As a defender, we take pride in getting clean sheets.

I'm a defender, and my first job is to make the team secure at the back; that's my primary responsibility.