Sam Allardyce

Football is a worldwide business consortium and to satisfy that best you need to find the best players.

Football today means players stay less now than ever before and you have to accept that. As a manager, a big part of your business is doing far too much business that you don't want to do really.

I coach defending an awful lot but I don't think too many teams in the Premier League or in the world of football actually coach defending anymore, certainly not the full-backs.

Defending is an art, everybody has forgotten it.

The more goals you concede ultimately results in the bottom three, not the more goals you score.

You have to keep control mentally when you go a goal down.

There's always that time in football where people say that when you have the dip, it's how well do you overcome it. And when you do overcome it, you then end up being a much better player and generally your career lasts a lot longer after getting through that period.

I want to be able to savour life while I'm still relatively young and when I'm still relatively healthy enough to do all the things I want to do, like travel, spend more time with my family and grandchildren without the huge pressure that comes with being a football manager.

There is a lot of pressure at first when you first take over a club that's struggling but you want to go and do your best for yourself, your family and the club that employ you.

I always like working with young people, it keeps you young.

In adversity you have to become stronger and make sure you don't make those mistakes again so you learn from it.

I believe first of all it's always a disappointment to lose the players at an important moment of the season.

Finishing in the top four for Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Man United was easier before, but now it's getting much more difficult with the emergence of teams like Manchester City.

We are in a position where we always have to change more players than we really want to and that brings a lot of instability and makes your job so much harder than it should be, because players come and go almost at the drop of the hat.

You cannot just force 'the only way to play is this way' in this country.

If a better player comes along, I will try to persuade the club to get him in. Sometimes, you can do your business and all of a sudden something appears that you never expected to appear.

As much as I liked Wolves as a boy and it was a childhood dream to play and perhaps manage for the club, I've come to Bolton and this is where I want to stay.

My management skills are more suited to developing teams to be better than what they were before, and not just about avoiding relegation.

I am very shocked and disappointed to be leaving Blackburn Rovers. I am extremely proud to have managed this club and I enjoyed a fantastic relationship with the players, my staff and the supporters during my time in charge.

I'm hardened over many years. You toughen yourself for whatever job. You either take the good with the bad or don't bother.

If you're talking about English football very few teams play 4-4-2 now: it's either 4-4-1-1, 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, they are the three major systems played throughout the Premier League.

Teams with limited budgets will always find times tough and results won't always go your way.

I've always thought Everton was a great club.

Since Newcastle I've had a fantastic time at Blackburn and then here, at West Ham.

I'm not suited to Bolton or Blackburn, I would be more suited to Inter or Real Madrid. It wouldn't be a problem to me to go and manage those clubs because I would win the double or the league every time. Give me Manchester United or Chelsea and I would do the same, it wouldn't be a problem.

Man-management is my biggest asset, to help the players enjoy themselves and be better than they already are.

A quality player is a quality player.

What is entertainment? Entertainment is the master of defence in Europe - Simeone.

I am not a great sleeper, so 30 minutes of meditation, they say in research, is as good as two or three hours sleep, which is why you feel better.

Jay Jay Okocha. On and off the field he was the captain you looked for.

I have always said that managers stay in a job when they win football matches.

It's great having the best league in the world, no doubt about that, but the downside of that is the national team will suffer.

The England team shouldn't be picked on whichever players are in the Premier League when you've got a Premier League player playing in the Championship.

Just because a player drops down a division, it doesn't mean he's turned into a bad player overnight and isn't good enough for England.

Now astronomical wages are making it very difficult to take somebody who might not even have a transfer fee attached to them, because of the net value that they want and the net value that they're worth.

The vast sums of money that are coming in at the top end of the game are stretching the rest of the sides to try to get as much benefit out of what finance they've got and get the best players they can find for that finance.

I think that the problem for any player you want to select for England, not just in isolation, is that it'll be a concern if that player doesn't play for his team.

The bonding of the team is exceptionally important and trying to create a good team spirit and to have some fun.

Football is to be enjoyed and I've enjoyed my life in football for many years, it's the pinnacle of my career and I want to enjoy it the most.

It's not a very secure industry but it's one we all love and enjoy doing.

My model is much deeper than looking after players. My model is understanding the industry, working within it.

People too often - because it's an easy, lazy tag - dwell on my style of football.

Far too much emphasis on what is deemed the 'wrong' style of football. That's what annoys me. Your style depends on who you're playing and what group of players you have at your disposal.

A group of players go out and win a game in a style that gets the best out of them. That's the key to management.

I have to remind Arsene about his team, which used to win the league, that was the dirtiest team in the league. If you cast your mind back to when they were winning the league, they had more seedings-off and bookings than anyone else.

The problem for me is we are denying British coaches positions in all divisions now, particularly in the top division and the Championship. We need to do something about that. As a country, as the FA, as the Premier League, we need to protect the position of our own highly qualified coaches who are not even getting an interview now.

Everybody thinks they can do my job better than me, they always feel you've got to throw caution to the wind and that's the way supporters are.

I've worked at St James' and in the first game of the season there the fans will lift the players.

People seem to expect when that happens, for players to be brought in that are so much better than the ones that have left. In the end they might be better but in the beginning they might be worse. Because they all have to gel and get to know each other and get to know you.

One of my best friendships dwindled in the pub business - we still talk, but it challenged that friendship too much - and that taught me to go into football and find people that I can have good relations with but without being overly friendly.