Ernesto Valverde Quotes

I think the hardest part, and where we have to stay the most disciplined, as much as you want a player, you can't invent him if he doesn't exist.

My job is to bring in players I think can help this team, regardless of where they're playing.

I've always thought that having an attractive free agent is better than a guy who was picked in the seventh round.

A winning model would mean trying to get the best possible players that you can, at whatever age they are; it doesn't matter.

When you're a general manager, you don't get to see every single player, so you have to rely on your scouts.

Sometimes it takes a few years to land that special player.

Once you identify positional needs, then I think, then, what you do is, you be very selective on how you go about acquiring those players. You have to look at the resources available on how to acquire those players, and then, if you can, go acquire those assets that can best help this team get over the hump.

I don't get involved in recruitment like people think I do. There's a myth that I look at YouTube and choose players. I don't. Having an eye for players is an art. I have no interest in doing that.

The most important thing in IPL is to select the players. You don't get much time to develop a team so it's important to pick the right players.

I think the teams know more than I do in the sense of where I'd best fit. I might be a bit of a unique personality, so hopefully they can pick me apart, and if a team really feels that I'm their guy, hopefully they'll go and get me.

I wouldn't want to go out six nights a week and watch somebody's reserves playing to check out a footballer to see if we're going to buy him.

You go to the draft board and think, 'Here's a nose tackle. Who needs a nose tackle?' Well, eight teams in front of you need a nose tackle, and there's two nose tackles. It's something you have to figure out where you can get the players to play in your system.

General managers - I like to talk about the 'golden gut': general managers that not only can have a sense for the players that are going to perform beyond what people expect and get team chemistry right, but they also have to be able to make trades.

It's hard to change a roster around. You've got to hit your draft picks right, you've gotta hit free agency right, and a team's got to fit together.

Maybe it's old-fashioned, but I've always preferred to see players with my own eyes than on a video or going on somebody else's recommendation. If that means getting up early and taking a flight, then so be it. Our success at Everton came from having a great recruitment team who I made sure were out watching the players.

Any time you get a chance to acquire a really good football player, I'm all about that.

There's always two or three players I like, and why I like them, I can't tell you. There's just something about them I think would be great on a team.

Nowadays, of course, flesh peddlers and scouting services identify the best athletes when they are still in junior high. Prospects are not allowed to sneak up on us.

The scouts are watching matches and we have a huge amount of data we purchase and a pyramid approach in terms of delivering that information to our chief scout and his team who are assessing it.

Every team in the league is always looking to upgrade its talent.

We as a club should be aspiring to have the best players playing for us. We've had that in the past. We're in for players if the manager wants to be.

It is possible to sign many great players, but you cannot buy a team.

I don't think the Lakers really knew me when they first drafted me. They just saw my name and my size and my stats. They just picked somebody because they had to.

When a scout recommends a brilliant right back or a coach recommends one from our academy, we want the manager to weigh up what is right for the team.

When I was at Liverpool, I asked about Van Dijk when he was at Groningen and then at Celtic. But I was told he wouldn't be for us at the time. Van Dijk could have jumped from Celtic to a Liverpool.