David Pleat Quotes

When I told Arsene Wenger I was leaving, he said to me, 'I have £25m to spend on a few players.' My answer was, 'Obviously, Mr. Wenger, you are not shopping in Harrods. That will only buy you one good player.' Now I have been proved right.

You have expectations always when you buy players. Mostly, you have positive expectations.

Carlo Ancelotti wanted me in Madrid and had bet on me.

Football today means players stay less now than ever before and you have to accept that. As a manager, a big part of your business is doing far too much business that you don't want to do really.

When you are in the biggest clubs, and you are fighting for the best players with a lot of money, maybe the work of a sporting director is not so difficult.

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.

There is some right old rubbish talked about Gareth Bale's time with me at Tottenham. Was I ever going to sell Bale? No. Was I going to loan him? No.

I don't really like the business side of football, but I just like adding good players to our football team.

Perhaps I'll work as a director of football. I don't know.

I think the way City spends, I would say it's a lot of money. But they spend it in a responsible way. They attract good players, young players and they cost a lot of money.

At West Ham, I was never able to buy the top-flight players. It was a case of looking around, trying to do deals. I was always taking a gamble.

When you have good players in your squad that means other clubs are looking to them as well. For me, it is a normal situation in football.

Fantasy sports went a long way toward developing the sabermetrics formulas used not only by oddsmakers but general managers in hiring players. So the amateur fantasists ended up creating some of the algorithms that Oakland GM Billy Bean's statisticians used to win games with less salary money available for star players.

English football has just had a transfer window imposed for the first time, so it will be interesting to see how managers cope with the squads they have until it re-opens.

I knew Manuel Pellegrini from my time in Spain. I'd only heard good things about him, that he was someone who instilled the confidence in his players to go out and play good, attacking football.

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

I think Arsene Wenger was good for me.

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

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.

Sometimes you have to manage, and you have to sell two or three players who aren't playing many games.

The number of French players Arsenal have brought through is very impressive, and many of the players who arrived, especially the young ones, were unknown when they arrived to the general public.

At Brondby, we had Daniel Agger, who came up from the youth. He had two years in the team, and then we sold him to Liverpool for nearly £7 million, which is a lot of money in Denmark. As a manager, that gives you even greater satisfaction that winning something as a player.

I want the good players of other clubs to stay in the Bundesliga.

I never thought about money; otherwise, I would have left aged 26 when Real Madrid and Barcelona wanted me.

World Cups aren't moments to invest in players.