Gordon Strachan Football Quotations

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

T here are a lot of young faces in their side. They play at a high tempo and have some right good players. Ivan Sproule does very well when he comes on. To me, Scottish football is in a good place at the minute.

If you play for Celtic or Rangers, there is a certain responsibility. If you are a footballer full stop, you have a certain responsibility. You have to be disciplined. It's okay being angry, but you must be focused and you just keep trying to work on that. There is a thin dividing line between being a competitor and going over that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I want players who are always striving to improve.

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

For some strange reason we got on together. Maybe it was because I liked talking about football all the time. We'd sit down on the settee, have a cup of tea and chat about the game. He seemed to enjoy my company and vice-versa. You know, I've met football legends and legends of the entertainment business and they've sometimes been quite disappointing in terms of personality. But Big Jock walked in the room and you knew straight away you were in the presence of somebody special.

It's a shame for him because he has been playing excellent football and in a nice partnership with a nice midfield going there but we will just get on with it.

Some of the football was excellent today, which the wee man would have liked. It is the first trophy I have won and the first as a new group so, hopefully, there will be more. When the second goal went away, I knew that was us on the way.

Some of the football was excellent today, which the wee man would have liked.

If this were a football match, Portsmouth would be shown the yellow card for time-wasting. To comment now would embarrass the player but there will be a time of my choosing when I will have something to say.