Possession Play Quotes

United are about attacking football, and everything else has to takes its place behind that.

Any good attacker will always beat a defender who's face-marking you.

My confidence has been really building since my time at Espanyol. The two coaches are actually very similar on the pressing side of the game. They spend a lot of time on that side of it, and it's a lot of hard work.

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.

If you do an outside spin with the ball, it's more difficult to control it, so I try to pass it in a way that allows them to take the ball quicker in their path. That way, they may have more of an advantage to score or create themselves.

My teams have always been dominant about having the ball but having the ball to create opportunities. That's always been the clear way of my work.

If you're playing against an aggressive side, you need to play an aggressive game.

I like to create chances, to shoot when I play farther forward, but I also like playing deeper, as you have more time on the ball.

Part of being a Manchester United player under Sir Alex Ferguson, perhaps the most important part of being one of United's attacking players was that when you were in possession, you had to take risks in order to create goal-scoring chances. It was not an option; it was an obligation.

Whenever you play against Fred - we certainly did it - you let him get it because he has to take three or four touches. He doesn't know how to do one or two touches. Anyone that watches his game, he gets it facing the wrong way, turns, turns, chops, chops and he'll give you the ball three or four times a game.

If you play on possession, you don't have to defend, because there's only one ball

Football is open; it is not only keeping possession of the ball and making more passes.

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

At Arsenal, we're not short of combination football, and I like to join in on that and get in behind defenders and try to get shots off at goal.

It's not just about getting the ball and figuring out every time how you can keep possession, because there are plenty of players who can do that. That's just not how I view my performances. It's about, What can I do to change the game and the attacking aspect of the game?

Busquets is a sitting midfield player who breaks up play, intercepts, passes it very quickly and is intelligent. That's what he is. He's not much more than that, but he gets a lot of praise for it. Whereas Eric Dier does a similar job, but sometimes gets loads of criticism for it.

When you master all defensive and offensive aspects of the game and always enjoy the majority of possession, you're sitting in pole position to win.

Defensive midfield can be the one position that's easier to play as you get older.

The only thing I would like is to have more control of the game in terms of possession.

I don't really like all these tactical systems people talk about: 3-5-2, 4-3-3, and all that.

With a line of six in the defence and then three in front of that, it's not always easy to find the spaces to score the goals.

If you've got a fast and strong defender, on the left, I feel like I can give him trouble going down the line, coming inside, or making runs in behind.

The manager might like it sometimes when I play up front because I can cause trouble for the defenders, but for me, my best position is defensive midfield, stopping the opposition, and then looking to impose myself on a game.

I go hunting for my opponents high up the field, and I put stock in physical one-on-ones and winning individual duels.

We need the ball even to defend; that's our objective: having the ball and having it as far as possible from our goal as possible.