Positional Awareness Quotes

I know if I'm playing centre-back, there are certain places where you don't give your full-back the ball - because I've been the full-back!

I know that I'm not the fastest or the strongest or the best in the air, so from a very early age, I had to be positionally sound, or I was going to get beat. So you just kind of learn as you grow.

I pass and I move, I help you, I look for you, I stop, I raise my head, I look and, above all, I open up the pitch...The one who has the ball, is the master of the game...Thats the school of Joan Vilà, of Albert Benaiges, of Johan Cruijff, of Pep Guardiola

If my play is not to run and chase the ball, if my play is to stay backside, then I've got to stay backside. I've got to be disciplined. I can't run across the field and chase stuff that's not mine.

It always helps to play every game at the back with the same players. You get a good understanding of each other and how one of you works, and what positions to take up.

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.

Positional awareness comes with experience, so getting game time helps, but we also work a lot in training as a back-line and also on defensive shape.

Billy Jones, positionally, is unbelievable. He's not the fastest guy but he makes up for it by being positionally sound, so I really tried to focus and absorb where he would be in certain situations and just tried to add that in my game.

It was Thomas Tuchel's first season as coach and I played centrally always. The whole team had a great year, one that I enjoyed a lot. Our style has changed a bit, from trying to score within five seconds to a more calm and in some regard more educated style of play. We try to find the right moment - and then we explode.

Bielsa certainly had his own methods. He brought in laptops and showed us videos of where to be on the pitch in terms of position. They were strange little things, but that's why we learnt a lot under him.

I'd say Carrick has the qualities of a Scholes, Andrea Pirlo and Sergio Busquets.

I am aware that I can play in various positions.

Playing me in different positions helped me to get in the head of the others players: to know what they're thinking, where and how they are going to move.

Guardiola likes footballers who can pass the ball, who have eyes for the best position and the right runs.

Playing in midfield is a different ball game. You have to be on the half-turn all the time, have a different picture in your head of what is behind you and in front of you. Playing at right-back is different again.

Being injured gives you the chance to reflect on the players who play in your position, too. You see things you can do, things you can maybe do better.