Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by Tony Pulis - Page 2

My teams have always been very hard-working and competitive.

I think sometimes people don't understand the difference between being competitive and being dirty.

I accept that in life and football you have good times and bad, and it's how you deal with it.

The FA have to be careful in telling you what you can and cannot say. If they are telling you that you cannot tell the truth, then they are on sticky ground.

My dad was a steelworker but I had the opportunity to become a player. A very average player but a player all the same. But I worked my socks off to make something of myself.

When we were at Stoke and we first got in to the Premier League we had been second in the Championship and were regular winners in that division. The following year we weren't regular winners, so you have to manage yourself and you have to be positive yourself you have to lift the players.

I've always been a bit old-fashioned and thought the best way to sort things out was man to man.

I still believe in a lot of good old-fashioned values, and I do think anyone will ever change me in that respect.

There are too many people coming out of school and heading into a life of nothing. They go straight on the dole or into crime.

They should bring back National Service.

I think the biggest thing in the Premier League is the divide between the people who have and the people who haven't.

We know you have good runs and bad runs. The big thing you learn in the Premiership is you have to take it on the chin. You have learn how to lose without getting too down and too despondent. You have to box that up, put it to one side and make sure everyone who counts stays positive.

I think everybody has got to understand that you go into certain games, and they've got all the tools and the weapons to win a game of football and you're really trying to contend as much as anything else.

When I was a player, if you weren't in the team you would be knocking on the manager's door, saying, 'Well, if I can't play here, I'd like to play somewhere else.'

You have to accept criticism.

I've never had dirty teams.

Ever since I started professional football at 15 there was always that togetherness and solidarity in the dressing room - it is a sanctuary. When I started football everyone believed it.

Adversity is when you show your strength of character.

I have my grumpy days. The players will tell you that. But you have to be positive because you have to lift them.

I have never made a special case for certain players, even when coming up against individuals of the quality of someone like Cristiano Ronaldo.

I've come from a working class background in South Wales with eight of us in a three bedroom house. Four boys in one bed, two sisters in the other bedroom and mum and dad in the box room.

Someone asked me 'What's the biggest thing you'll take out of the Premier League?' I said that you can't relax. I think you can go from having a great run of games - you can go four, five, six unbeaten - and turn a corner and go into a run of seven or eight games without winning. That's how difficult it is for the so-called smaller clubs.

You have different characters in the dressing room. If you have a go at someone, someone might answer back, other people will take it and speak afterwards.

I always remember sitting with my son, Anthony, at Arsenal one night and watching Barcelona during the warm-up. Messi launched this ball miles into the air and then killed it dead with his foot when it came back down. Anthony and I just looked at each other. Normal human beings aren't capable of doing that.

When things go wrong it is magnified 10 times more in the Premier League.

The important thing is not just getting good players in, but getting good characters and the right types of player in.

Discipline and respect and hard work are not bad words. I expect that from everybody - especially the players who are in fortunate and very lucky positions.

However terrible the football, when you're winning you can get away with it.

If you're a manager in the Premier League the pressure is enormous because if you don't win matches, you'll not be there very long.

I think football is a reflection on life and society and you have to move with the times. I've moved with the times, I've had to.

The great thing about this country is that everyone has the chance to voice their own opinion.

I can remember being at Gillingham playing in the fourth division ringing up other people I knew at clubs to see what team they would play, if they had injuries. Or you would ring a press man you knew in that area.

Every time I take my teams abroad, the players always behave.

The biggest thing about management is self-motivation.

The more you achieve, the more people want.

English football, especially Premier League football, is different to most football on the continent.

There is no point going man-to-man with a player of Messi's ability. He is so clever he would drag your player all over the pitch and still find a way to destroy you, probably exploiting the hole you've left by assigning someone to that role.

Players live a different life. They've been blessed. They live in a bubble and they live in a world where they get everything really. They've become film stars.

Respect for people who employ you, respect for people you work with, respect for the job you're doing is enormous for me. I adhere to those principles.

I've mellowed with my age.

Whether it's the internet, radio, television, there are always areas of debate, but you have to accept it. The media now has become an absolute monster.

Ive got nothing against foreign managers, they are very nice people. Apart from Arsene Wenger

I'm amazed to find those countries are in Europe.