I've been playing football for a while, but Guardiola really made me a better player. I was 29 when I started working with him, so I wasn't very young, but if you see the steps I made thanks to him, it shows you what he is capable of doing. Guardiola didn't just put me on the flanks but in other positions as well.
I never really got that chance at Manchester City and developed into a utility player. Playing in all the positions has made me a better player because it's not easy to do that. Understanding the game has made me a more rounded player as well.
I only have words of thanks to Mourinho, he has made me better. I played a lot under him and I was named player of the season with him in the dugout.
I think Pep Guardiola is a top manager. There's no doubt about that. Not only did he manage Messi and Iniesta, but he made them better and took them to levels they'd never been before. The best team I've ever seen is Pep Guardiola's Barcelona. I'm sure his management got something to do with that.
My father was an inspiration to me; I made a few movies with him and I loved working with him. Everything about him - his whole approach to work, as well as his love, enthusiasm and respect for it and other people in the business - was inspiring. I was very lucky to have him as a role model.
A young tenor player was complaining to me that Coleman Hawkins made him nervous. Man, I told him Hawkins was supposed to make him nervous! Hawkins has been making other sax players nervous for forty years!
A good friend of mine took me out and had me hit off a tee. He made me understand what was my strike zone and - with my speed - the importance of making contact. So I give him a lot of credit for changing my game and making me the player I became. He showed me how to work on me and my game, and not worry about patterning myself after someone else and focusing on what they were capable of doing rather than what I was capable of doing.
If I stay working with Pep Guardiola, if he wants me, he's just going to be a lucky man because I will be really hungry. I am the type of player for his philosophy and the way he likes his team.
He was always brilliant, but when Pep Guardiola started to use him as a 'false' No. 9, he got even better. It's impossible to be more of a footballer than Messi.
I loved something I made up, something that's just as dead as Melly is. I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not. And I wouldn't see what he really was. I kept on loving the pretty clothes—and not him at all.
My talent in playing football was not the highest but I was very hard-working, interested to learn and get better, and this focus made me better and better.
Under Pep Guardiola, it's hard work. For me, Guardiola is one of the best coaches I've ever met. He's incredibly clever and tactically really good, and he knows how to speak to us, how to motivate us, and that's what it is like.
Under Wenger I became the player that I am today because he's the guy that signed me at 16. I owe him a lot and all the time I spent here he made me play so much even when I was really young. Those are things you owe him back.
My thing has always been, I've never been very open and vulnerable with people, so the minute I got this dog, everything changed. It just opened me up and made me more loving... It's all because of him... He's made me a better person... I can tell people what I feel now. I can cry in front of people sometimes.
When we are in possession, tactically, he is the best coach in the world for me. He works hard, watches a lot of games, and prepares us really well. Guardiola has the feeling for gaping spaces, and he already had that as a player.
Guardiola has never been a great player; he was just a good player.
The way Guardiola plays suits me. It enables me to get into space in attacking positions.