Jill Ellis Quotes

I like to be in contact with the ball, have possession, to play.

When teams play good football, it tends to create chances for the striker.

For me, possession is to keep the ball while you are waiting for the possibility to penetrate. Every pass is for a reason.

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.

In football, time and space are the same thing.

If you've got someone like Thierry Henry in your team, you get him on the ball.

As a player I was taught the importance of working four or five passes within your team and then stretching the play. That's something I believe in strongly as a coach.

I'm a striker. I feel I can have my greatest impact there because I'm free to roam around the pitch, take players on, have shots and create chances.

If you play every time, long balls, you lose possession and you lose momentum. I don't want to be like that.

Sometimes in midfield, it's nice because you do get a little bit more of the ball, and maybe out wide you rely on people to get you the ball.

I liked mostly to play football on the ground and have a little bit of playing tactics rather than just up and down, long balls and second balls. That's not really my game.

All coaches say, 'We want to control the game. We want the ball. Blah, blah, blah, blah,' but it's impossible to have the ball all the time.

Pace is just how fast we can get the ball from one end to the other. It's not necessarily how fast we can shoot. It's just a tempo thing.

It is impossible to do it for the whole game, but when you have the ball for most of the game and have players like Samir Nasri, David Silva, Yaya Toure, and Raheem Sterling, they keep the ball so well.

In the midfield, I'm not the most comfortable playing with my back to the goal, and in the midfield you find that ball a lot.

If you have a good midfield, you have a good team.

It's a different style the way the German players play. I think the English players like to play a lot of one and two touch and we can find each other in the pockets.

The midfield is the heartbeat of a football team, it's the centre of the action, so you can't just do one thing.

I like to get the ball on the ground, make good plays and move the ball around the pitch quickly at a good tempo.

I always like the players to be within 10 to 15 metres of each other. When the attacking players try what I am asking them to do, and it breaks down, there are players close enough to then go and win the ball back and counter press the game.

Always, even with the U17s in Spain, U19s, we play from the back, and we try to improve on that a lot. So I always enjoy having the ball at my feet.

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 try to have a picture when I receive the ball and know where everyone is. That's one of the most important things for a midfielder.

We need the ball even to defend; that's our objective: having the ball and having it as far as possible from our goal as possible.

That's the intelligence of football: to see when to be compact, when to counter-attack, or, if you see that you're in the opposite half, you try and win the ball.