Possession-Based Football Quotes

It's in the DNA of River fans to prefer attractive and technical football with plenty of possession. I noticed that quickly, and I was made aware just how important that was to River fans, and so I tried to adapt with my characteristics and ability.

When I signed for Barca, I knew their playing style was suited to my game.

Manchester United are always a team that try to play football, try to play football from the back.

It is always tough, always difficult playing against Klopp's teams.

I like to play attacking football, but I think the big difference is that we expect a lot more from our strikers, to do more pressing and to keep compact. We like to play a high line defensively and press the ball.

If I stay working with Pep Guardiola, if he wants me, he's just going to be a lucky man because I will be really hungry. I am the type of player for his philosophy and the way he likes his team.

When teams train now, it is about what they do with the ball and, if they lose it, how quickly they press to win it back.

Training with Guardiola is good. He's always talking to each player, trying to give them a vision of the style of football he wants to play.

Scholes was playing tiki-taka football when nobody in England knew what it was. He was another of those players, like Denis Law or Bobby Moore, who at 15 probably looked as if he wouldn't make it.

In a way, I feel there's a Carrick style of playing.

You pressure, you want possession, you want to attack. Some teams can't or don't pass the ball. What are you playing for? What's the point? That's not football. Combine, pass, play. That's football - for me, at least.

I don't like the Italian approach. I don't want to be involved in that kind of football.

My teams have always been dominant about having the ball but having the ball to create opportunities. That's always been the clear way of my work.

I don't think it's fair comparing Barcelona's style with that of Roma.

At Tottenham, I'm asked to take a lot of risks to keep maximum possession of the ball and build from the back.

Guardiola has a way of playing; he has a system, and he sticks to that.

When you play in the Premier League, say you're playing against a lower-end team, they set up to defend all the time, they set up to block you off. But when you play in the Champions League, all the other teams are used to winning every week, so it's more of an open game, it's more attacking, end-to-end.

I started in a 4-3-3 formation at Ajax, playing in left midfield. There, you need to be just as involved defensively as you are going forward. You attack and you defend, and that allows you to be a complete player.

Sarri's football can work in England.

I think the Brazil system is similar to the one we use at Liverpool, with lots of movement, players open out wide, and quality midfielders who join the attack and score goals.

Mauricio Pochettino - he was my captain at PSG and I always knew he would become a manager. He has taken a lot of influence from Marcelo Bielsa, who was his coach with Argentina; they used to talk about things a lot, and now you can see that his teams are really aggressive, both when attacking and defending.

What do folk always say about Arsenal? They can pass you to death.

The Spanish league has better individual players than the German league. However, in Germany, there are more teams that are uncomfortable to play against because they are more aggressive than teams in Spain.

In Spain, everything's more tactical, more technical, with more possession. In Germany, it's more physical; it's about the runs you make, the counterattacks, and the German mentality is unique: whatever the score, you go to the 90th minute.

When you play the top sides you cannot afford to be as open as 4-4-2 can leave you. Consequently teams adapt their formation.