N'Golo Kante Quotes

Most teams won't really focus on one player because they've got multiple players to defend and that will open up a lot of things for me.

Whoever I'm playing against, I go in and try to stop their best scorer and try to get myself going on the offensive end.

It's hard to guard two dynamic players working together rather than guarding them going one-on-one.

Young quarterbacks do well because they have a great defense.

If we don't start playing better on defense, it's going to be hard. We can't just sit there and win shootouts.

I probably visualize myself, the shots I'm going to get in the game, how I'm going to play defense, what we have to do to stop the other team's best player, what it's going to take out of me, the whole aspect of the game.

I'd never switch to man-to-man unless we were able to play good man-to-man. Ever.

The first time I played against Seattle was the only time I felt destroyed. Vin Baker just manhandled me. The whole thing, their double teams, their movement, everything. I must've had eight turnovers. Which isn't a big deal for me because I turn the ball over a lot.

When a big play occurs for our team, I'm concentrating on how the defense is reacting to it. Most of the time, I don't see the great catch or the long run. What I'm looking at is how the other team defended it.

In this league you might have a quarterback within your division that you're worried about running all over the place, the next week it's a running back, so to be able to have multiple answers for every situation is probably a benefit for everybody.

When you are a coach, you are watching how the team is positioning itself on the field - if your team is in possession of the ball, you are already anticipating what could happen if you lose the ball.

That's the main thing on defense: focus, patience and staying as one unit.

A lot of guys are offensive minded, which is good at some points and times but bad at others - at lots of others. I wish I could say I want everybody to play defense as hard as I do. It's not a reality.

We cannot take responsibility for every goal we concede, we all need to do our part across the field to ensure we win as a team.

Anybody can be beaten by one pass once. Are you getting beat by that same pass multiple times in the same game? That answer is no.

It's a scary thing when a team don't know who to match up to, whose night it's going to be on the offensive end.

You need to defend as a team to defend well.

We have ways to confront the attention that Messi gets. Some teams mark him personally; others get physical and surround him with players.

It's how I've been playing my whole life, guarding the best player on the other team.

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

You have to communicate with your teammates; you have to be on a string. There are a lot of things that go into a play. And then you are guarding a two or three, which is probably one of their better players on the team, so you're focused on them.

At the highest level, if you don't have a solid defensive base, you can't get by. In one match, yes. But over a whole competition? No.

Casemiro has to cover the gaps left by everyone. That's balance for me; to make sure the game doesn't go mad.

We try and play football in a positive way. Any team has to be defensively organised, but you have to look at the attributes of the players and play to their strengths.

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