Gordon Strachan Player Quotations

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

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 want players who are always striving to improve.

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

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.

It is obviously a huge disappointment to lose a player of Chris's quality. The club has granted Chris his wish to move on and I would like to wish him all the best for the future.

Craig, like Adam, still has loads to work on before he can be called a real player here.

It's never good losing a player like Stan, but hopefully the rest will do him good. I think it's probably fair to say that he hasn't been as dynamic for us over recent games and, if you look at his performances, I think there's a lot there to suggest that his body has been getting tired.

It's obviously a huge disappointment to lose a player of Chris's quality.

I don't think there will be too much of a problem getting a work permit. I spoke to the player and he loved it here and we will try to make an arrangement to keep it ongoing.

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 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.

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