Jordan Henderson Quotes

I would prefer to play for and against an attacking team, but I am now used to playing against defensive teams.

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.

Centre-backs usually get criticised for clearing the ball long, but it's easier doing this than risking a pass. If you lose the ball at the back, it's almost a goal. Most centre-backs don't risk this kind of game, depending on the holding midfielder in front.

When you're a kid you just think about where you are going to be to put yourself in a position for the next scoring chance. But as you develop, you start to do things that may not catch the eye of the normal football watcher, the dropping back, the closing down.

I'm a coach who likes to have the ball, but what I really think is, 'How can you be in charge of the game?' I think, but maybe I am the only one, that the defensive process can take care of the game. Why is that? Because teams wait to defend. If you create something where you go to defend, to steal the ball where you want, it's different.

If you look at Barcelona and the way they press high, or Bayern Munich, the way they press high... that's what makes them the best teams, because when they lose the ball, in the first three seconds, that's when they get the ball back, really, really high.

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.

At Tottenham, we are just bombing on as wing-backs, but sometimes on the international stage, where there is so much quality, you need to be more careful about the distance between yourself and the right-sided centre-half.

When I've watched teams that play with five at the back and wing-backs, I've looked at their starting positions and positions out of possession because that comes a little bit more unnaturally to me.

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.

What Liverpool do really well is they try to get you inside but then close you down.

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.

It is vital to maintain possession and to win it back as soon as possible, because if we win it high up, then the opposition has to run 70 metres.

Pochettino likes to play from the back, with the buildup, have the ball.

I always tried to defend high up the pitch, to be in the opposition's half and play the game there.

Defending isn't just about tackling and heading, it's also about getting the ball down and playing - starting the attack from the back.

If I'm playing higher up the pitch, it's important I don't get carried away and start dropping too deep and I stay in my position.

When we lose the ball, I don't want to win it back directly. I act smarter now, have better anticipation, and also start earlier when somebody tries to lob the ball over me.

You can't play man to man against Liverpool and out-pass them. You have to keep your shape and stop them.

Maybe Klopp is the best manager in the world at creating teams who attack the back four with so many players, from almost anywhere on the pitch. They have an intensity with the ball and without the ball, and it is not easy to do that.

Firstly, I am somebody who plays in a defensive role, and we need to start with that, but then I need to bring the ball forward and help the attack.

I don't like getting pinned back with a line of four in midfield. You risk losing too much space.

It is an important part of the role of a centre-back to focus on building up the game and initiating moves.

Someone said that my coaching is a combination of Milan's defensive discipline and the Dutch propensity for attacking football, and I think that is a fair description.

It's a different playing style than at Monaco; there were two of us in midfield there, and here at Liverpool, there's three.