Owen Farrell Quotes

In football, you don't hold on to the ball just to hold on to the ball. When you have it you need to be dangerous, create opportunities and score goals. And when you don't, you make sure the opposition doesn't.

I want the ball for 90 minutes. When I don't have the ball, I go high pressing because I want the ball.

I think I have that ability to win the ball back quickly when we lose it.

Part of my job leading the line for Watford is to occupy centre-halves - by that I mean those battles with Huth, say, to try to win headers when the ball is played forward. But I also look to bring centre-halves out of position to the flanks and make space for my team-mates in the middle.

I don't want just pure roll out of the back four. I want productive mixed play... how many ways can you affect a game?

Luis Enrique has a clear idea, and the team has understood it perfectly. He asks us to press high up the pitch, to counter quickly when the opposition attacks and try to maximise the space between the lines with the speed we have.

There is no Benitez 'method.' We try to be more solid in defense without losing the quality in attack.

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.

Keeping up your concentration is one of the hardest tasks when you're a centre-back because a team like Bayern tend to dominate and can give you sense of false security.

Against Chelsea, you will have periods in the game when you are right up against it, when they keep the ball. They are pretty solid the way they set their team up.

There's two sides to the game, and you have to do the ugly side as well. If you're getting beat, and you're conceding the goals that we're getting beaten by, then it's because you're not defending and shutting people down well enough.

You have to make the strikers fear you. Make it difficult for them to get on the ball and go into different areas. That makes my job easier.

I don't want Kylian to play like Neymar and keep the ball. Kylian is incredibly dangerous in the final move, and I want him to stay that way.

Liverpool midfielder Xabi Alonso was always bemused by our enthusiasm for tackling, because he saw it as the last resort.

At Tottenham, I'm asked to take a lot of risks to keep maximum possession of the ball and build from the back.

It's not easy to create chances or a game when you're just receiving long balls.

Sometimes you can get sloppy and control the ball right at your feet, and that gives the defenders a chance.

Every kid thinks about scoring rather than not conceding.

Teams that just play on one side of the floor are going to struggle against defenses that load up on that side.

In England and Germany, perhaps, there is more of a focus on the physical side of the game, in breaking down the opposition's play, especially against the lower placed sides.

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

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.

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.

If you have a defensive concept, you're going to play defense. If you don't have a defensive concept, and you have an offensive concept, then you're going to play offense.

In Spain, you get seven clear chances a game to receive the ball and shoot. In Italy, you get very few clear balls, and you have to fight everyone to score; that makes you improve and develop.