Gordon Strachan Quotes

Paul Scholes has been the best England midfield player for 30-odd years. You'd probably have to go back to Bobby Charlton to find someone who could do as much as Scholes. When the ball arrives at his feet he could tell you where every player on that pitch is at that moment. His awareness is superb.

It's an incredible rise to stardom. At 17 you're more likely to get a call from Michael Jackson than England manager Sven Goran Eriksson.

Do I miss football in Scotland? It keeps you really alive, that's for sure. Your heartbeat fluctuates. I'm flatlining at the moment which is actually quite nice but you need to go up and down to stay alive.

If I was English I'd kill myself

I'm just going to crumble like a wreck. I'll go home, become an alcoholic and maybe! jump of a bridge.

I'm going to miss his childlike laugh. I'll forget the goals but I'll never forget that laugh.

The reality, ... is that I need to win games of football. That's where the pressure and the sleepless nights come from. There's a fantasy pressure with this job but none of that matters. I need to make this team into a good unit, need to take it forward, give it a change of pace, need to get it younger and to use the experience of the lads we've got here. I need Lennon and Sutton and people like that to go and show how you handle being a Celtic player.

I want players who are always striving to improve.

You people sometimes are like those serial killers you see in films who cut out the words 'I am going to get you' or 'your wife is next'.

People talk about how you make team spirit - is it golf days or going out drinking together? That doesn't count. When you drink, you just tell lies to each other anyway and talk rubbish.

He [Sir Alex Ferguson] used to play tapes of Bill Shankly talking. I remember that and a singer he liked. I don't know who it was but it was crap. He played it on the team bus too, and all the boys hated it. Until one night it got chucked away. If he's still wondering who threw that tape off the bus, it was me. So maybe he was right and I'm not to be trusted.

I like to be able to control which players I'm working with. Because it doesn't matter how good a coach you are if the guys you're working with think they already know it all. You need a response, you need to feel they're trying. I want players who are always striving to improve.

I tried to talk to the ref but it is easier to get to see the Pope. If I'm in London again and I get mugged I hope the same number of people turn up to protect me. There were six police, four stewards and even a UN peace observer out there.

Believe me, you need good people if you want to make good players.

It took me 35 years of being involved at a decent level of football to become manager at a great club like Celtic.

The world looks a totally different place after two wins. I can even enjoy watching Blind Date or laugh at Noel's House Party.

Fitness is a curve. You can be Lance Armstrong, or you can be really out of shape at the opposite end. People enter the curve wherever they are and then they can move up the curve, by better nutrition and better exercise.

I think if you've managed Celtic or Rangers you can go on to be Prime Minister of Great Britain, it's that hard.

Are there Martians out there? I haven't got a clue. Is there life out there? I have no idea.

Everybody at Barcelona loves Messi. They can't speak highly of him.

Arsene Wenger was talking about comparisons with Johan Cruyff, a player who only comes around every 10 years and Thierry Henry is definitely one of those

I did think there were one or two referees who had a personal thing against me. It wasn't them versus Celtic - it was them against me! I just think they wanted to take me on.

The reason I became a manager was to have full control over training. If you are a coach, you are bound by what the manager wants you to coach. The other reason is that I just like the company of football people.

I've seen teams spend £150 million and get nowhere near the Champions League. It has taken Manchester City a billion to get there. There are no guarantees.

I'm a better coach now than when I joined Celtic. The longer you stay in any job, the better you become. If you lose your drive, your enthusiasm, your imagination, that experience is no good.

I think what I've actually achieved as a manager does sometimes get a bit overlooked, because all people think about is the media side of things. They tend to forget I've not done so bad.

If you keep asking me questions, I will continue to find excuses.

Good players win you games, good formations stop you losing them.

Sometimes to go forward you've got to go to the depths of your own personal despair and claw yourself back. From that point, no matter what happens, you know you can do it.

I get the feeling a lot of politicians are there to help themselves financially, first and foremost. I don't really need to do that, and I thought if I could do something for sport in Scotland, that would be really fulfilling.

He could have done one of three things. He didn't do either.

Thomas Gravesen thinks he's broke his hand, but I told him that you play football with your feet and not your hand.

People talk about footballers and they get a bad press when not all of them deserve it.

It wasn't an easy decision to leave out Bobo, because I could have done that with two or three from the back four. But there's a limit to the players you have and the changes you can make. The reality is we're not defending well enough. But we just have to plug on. There's no magic formula.

I'm not saying you have to be married to be a good footballer. I'm just saying it felt strange to come to a club where there are only three members of the first-team squad that are married. You need responsibility in life.

All the really good players I know, they all knew right from wrong. So many of them don't learn that at home nowadays.

I've had to take a lot of stick down the years but the one thing that really got to me was when someone questioned my integrity. It's the one thing that really grates with you.

I've been in football a long time and people have problems through debt, drugs, drink and family.