Ousmane Dembele Quotes

I think most athletes want to be told when they make a mistake. They don't want to be coddled. They can deal with criticism, especially when it's valid.

Criticism is part of football, but we have to work.

Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn't he?" he said. I could barely muster a "yeah." That's a good thing," the assistant told me. When you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, it means they've given up on you.

Everyone needs a coach. It doesn't matter whether you're a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.

I think I play better when people say keep showing us what you've got, keep showing us. And whatever's going to get me to play at a high level is what I want to do.

Pressure brings out the best in me. It's the only way to keep improving: putting a bit of pressure on yourself.

I think every manager has that, the so-called hairdryer treatment when things need a little turnaround.

Sometimes I look at myself and think: have I been too hard in terms of pushing and challenging the players? But I only think about that for five minutes and then I say I am doing okay because they need to be pushed and challenged.

I'm used to being coached. Something I learned long ago is that a coach is trying to make you better and to be the best version of yourself.

Most of us are not pure self-starters; most people need role models, they need coaches, they need exemplars, they maybe need some discipline or some rewards. We need to be motivated.

I am comfortable giving people direction. If something is not good enough, my job is to find a way to help them learn from their mistake, and understand that next time I expect better.

My dad never really played basketball, but now he's my biggest critic. I come home, and he says: 'Why didn't you shoot there? Why didn't you drive?'

As a competitor, you have to learn pretty quickly how to deal with pressure.

I have spent a lifetime watching kids make mistakes because they were not trained or well led or properly motivated to do well. I never faulted the kids; rather, I saw opportunity to train, to motivate, to improve leadership - not to punish the individual.

I played with a lot of great players before. They're all the same. They take a lot of responsibility for their own play, put a lot of pressure on themselves to perform and to play well.

If a player's not doing the things he should, put him on the bench. He'll come around.

All my coaches tell me that I have been under achieving.

We could all use more coaching.

You can't listen to every little thing that's bad or good said about you. I always used that - whenever I heard it, I used it as fuel to motivate me, man. That's how I was raised, whenever I came up.

When you look at myself, I'm a coach, and that's what it's all about. When you're a player, you get criticized, and when you're a coach, you get criticized even more because it's about wins and losses.

People criticising does spur you on. You are always going to get critics.

I actually love pressure.

No matter how angry people on the outside were when you don't perform well, a coach is 10 times what anyone else is feeling. Nothing digs at you more. But that's part of our business.

Knowing how to tactfully criticize someone's work is a mentor's job.

We show a player every good thing he does for the team, but if he makes a bad thing for the team, he will also hear about that, in front of the other players.