Per Mertesacker Quotes

I consider all aspects of being a goalkeeper as fundamental in the development of the side as a whole.

I know when I step into midfield I have to sharpen my feet up and be more aware of what's around me, at centre back it's more about timing, positioning and communication.

In tactics and training, we do more with Conte. We work a lot of tactical positions, and we know exactly what we have to do on the pitch, where I have to go, and where the defenders have to go. We know exactly what to do.

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.

There is so much interaction in a football match: between you and your team-mates and how you support each other, work for each other, make runs. But I also enjoy the other aspect: the pressing and how people work so hard to recover the ball.

I think a lot of managers say that it starts from the front and us as defenders know it helps our job when the front two strikers put that pressure on. If they can do that it makes our job a lot easier.

There are a lot of things you learn from playing wide. You also understand the way that you can coordinate with the front three or front two.

I stay in the middle and my team-mates can go to attack.

As long as everyone does their part - the attackers score the goals, and the defenders keep the clean sheets - then you can't go too wrong.

So I'd rather have a defense that's successful where everyone's comfortable in their positions.

Rather than opera, football is more like ballet or a chess game. You can really see it in a team like Arsenal, especially when Dennis Bergkamp was playing. He seemed to be able to read the game like a chessboard and knew where a player would be several seconds later and put the ball there for him.

Just hearing somebody's voice in center field, it helps our guards out to know where they need to go, when the screen is coming, when the back door is coming, when the flare is coming. When different things like that happen and we're talking, it helps us all out in the long run.

The work is intense. You have to calculate a great deal very quickly which requires football intelligence and real concentration. Part of my role is to shuttle between the defense and the attacking lines to make sure that the ball circulates well and quickly.

Not everything is seen that happens on the pitch - the teammate in a good position, where it might get dangerous, how a situation develops.

You need to know exactly where to be on the pitch at all times.

I like to play with my back to the goal, but my colleagues have to tell me when I'm alone or how much room I have so I can choose to pass or to go straight for the goal.

I think it's important that you're vocal during the match, especially at centre-half. You're basically the eyes and ears of the team, and if you don't open your mouth, it's not going to help the team out.

It's all about controlling the huddle one play at a time and knowing my assignment, knowing my progression and where I've got to go with the ball.

You work to make sure that, in the game, everybody knows where they're supposed to be at, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But if you put them in a position to be successful, that's all you can ask for.

The beginning of everything is our defensive organisation. The clean sheet is always the first objective that we have in the game. Always.

I think defending is more of, like, a science, and it's fun to learn that. And then I see attacking as an art.

To be useful in defence, to win back the ball, you don't always have to go sliding into the tackle. It's also about your positioning; sometimes all you have to do is take a step back.

I always try to manage the ball in a way that can help the way my teammates receive it.

When you haven't got the ball, while we're defending, sometimes I am not always where I need to be.

I have played as a goalkeeper since I was six but I always worked on my ball skills, playing with my foot, knowing how to control the ball, how to pass. But the main thing is to save goals.