Top 111 Quotes & Sayings by Sam Allardyce

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

A quality player is a quality player.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

I think accepting an instruction is part of a player's responsibility.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

My parents are from Scotland and my sister and brother were both born in Scotland so my heritage is from there.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I have a great amount of enthusiasm, and I am a man who knows how to do this job inside out because of the experience I've gained over the years.

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.

My main aim is to finish as high up the top of the Premier League as possible. I have the ability to help teams survive.

When you hit that safe 40-point mark it's very easy for a player to think about his holidays and actually switch off.

We live in a world that builds people's expectations so high, so when the downside comes there is a knee-jerk reaction.

There's only a certain amount of times you can tell somebody what they should or shouldn't be doing. If they don't want to take it on board there's little you can do.

For the record, I've never taken a bung in my life. I might have enjoyed a meal or a bottle of wine on an agent or two but that is it. I was earning £1.5m a year, so I didn't need a little bit extra from an agent. It would have been madness.

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.

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.

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

We've got the greatest Premier League, greatest domestic competition in the world but the downside of that is we've got fewer and fewer English players playing in that league.

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

There's always going to be a time when there's a difficult period and my responsibility is to manage the players through that. You have to make sure you bring stability back to the club and get where you want to be.

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.

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

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.

I don't have to prove a point to anybody. The only thing I do is continue to do my job and all the outside press can do and say what they want to because that's their right and their industry.

To say we have to play a certain way, or try to, every game is great in theory, but depending what players you have got you have to play to their strengths and cover up their weaknesses.

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.

My confidence is in myself and how I run a football club and I've been doing that for many, many years now.

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.

It is very important to me to communicate with the fans and not hide what's going on behind the scenes.