Top 148 Midfield Quotes & Sayings - Page 2

Two wide men stuck out wide leave you very open in midfield, but it's a strength as well. Going forward, it makes you pretty dangerous to anyone.

4-3-3 is better for me because I can score more goals, and also create more and tackle in midfield which I like to do to help the team.

One of the things that makes the best teams in the world the best is the fact that, across midfield and up top, they are capable of hurting you.

Alfredo Di Stéfano was the greatest footballer of all time - far better even than Pelé. He was, simultaneously, the anchor in defence, the playmaker in midfield, and the most dangerous marksman in attack.

As a young player, I played up front, on the wing, in midfield, and when I started in the reserves at Standard Liege, I played centre back.

As a full back, your role is just as much in playing in midfield, getting forward and creating chances, as it is stopping them at the other end.

Once I reached about 14 or 15, I started to steady myself and get into a midfield role and carried that on until I was 17. Then I dropped into right-back, and I have played there ever since.

I'm a centre forward, and that is my preferred position. But I'll play on the wing or in midfield, wherever the manager wants me to play.

Growing up I've been playing as an attacking midfielder, more central in the midfield. I wouldn't say if I'm most comfortable there but that's where I grew up playing.

It's important to be a soccer player in the sense of the whole vision - if you put me at forward, I can do it, or if you put me in midfield, I can do it.

I just want to be able to be an attacking influence and have that effect further up the pitch; whether that's from an attacking midfield position or one of the wider positions coming in, I'm not too fussed.

In the academies, people develop differently, and going into that No 10 role helped me because central midfield was always packed with big, strong boys.

There are those who condemn five in midfield as a negative tactic, but when a side's centre-backs are as hapless as Chris Perry and Hermann Hreidarsson were on Sunday, it is not nearly negative enough.

I think my biggest strength is that I always keep doing exactly the same thing. There are forwards who go crazy with euphoria, but after a goal, I let myself fall back to the midfield, recharge. Keeping yourself cool and concentrated on your mission.

If you have a good midfield, you have a good team.

Normally when you look at the Ballon d'Or winners, they're either attacking midfield players or centre-forwards. They are goalscorers and eye-catching players.

A quest for knowledge is not a war with faith; spirituality is not usually an infelicitous amalgam of superstition and philistinism; and moral relativism, taken outside midfield, leads inexorably both to heresy and to secular wickedness, which are often identical.

I have said from day one I see myself as a center back. But, if I am asked to play in midfield or at right-back, I am happy to do so.

I played fly-half in rugby, so I could influence the game, and midfield in hockey too. So it is part of my sporting DNA to want to be in the game at all times, to affect what is going on. That's down to genetics and being ginger, I reckon. We're special specimens.

In the defensive midfield position, the player needs to give balance to the team and try to control the game. That's exactly what I try to do.

For me, Paul Scholes has been the best midfield player in the Premier League. By a mile. He has the lot. He scores and creates goals, he can pass the ball, he can head it, and rounds all this off with a competitive streak.

Maybe modern tactics mean that making the switch from defence to midfield is easier. Many years ago, full backs were more limited - you were just supposed to defend, and it didn't matter if you could get forward too.

If you have control of the midfield, you have control of the game, and you have more chances to win.

Roy Hodgson destroyed me. He made me play in the centre of midfield.

Zizou is a phenomenon. It is an honour to share the same midfield as him. But he thinks the same about me.

I started in a 4-3-3 formation at Ajax, playing in left midfield. There, you need to be just as involved defensively as you are going forward. You attack and you defend, and that allows you to be a complete player.

I am a player who likes to play in between the lines and try to break that midfield line, whether it's when I receive a pass or can go and show everyone what I am about.

I am actually comfortable in every position in midfield. At Bayern Munich, I even played as a winger and sometimes a full-back, so I can play many different positions.

If I was to play on the left, I'd rather play there if there was three in midfield.

I can play left-back; I can play in midfield or on the left or right wings.

Real are really powerful in attack, really strong in defence, and have a balanced midfield. There's a reason they've won two Champions Leagues in a row.

I would loved to have played with Scholes. He plays the game the way it should be played and at his peak he was the best midfield player in the world.

The manager might like it sometimes when I play up front because I can cause trouble for the defenders, but for me, my best position is defensive midfield, stopping the opposition, and then looking to impose myself on a game.

Beckham and Frank Lampard were the ones that I particularly liked watching, and with Lampard scoring so many goals from midfield it was hard not to look up to him.

If I don't get the service or if I don't the ball in the box, where I want it, I start drifting into midfield. I go and look for the ball. I try to be important for the team in other areas.

At Under-11/12, I was playing as a right-back. The manager then was Cyril Helstone, and he said to me, 'No, you're not a defender. You should be in midfield.' That was the big change in my career because from that moment until I made my debut in the first-team at Feyenoord, that was the position I played.

I think I am strong on the field, I am versatile, I can play in several midfield positions. Some coaches like that, it grabs their attention, it is a big deal for me.

As a youngster as I was a centre-half, I liked being on the ball and coming out from the back. I took chances so I got put in midfield and then I was playing all over the pitch so adjusted wherever I needed to play.

Sometimes in midfield, it's nice because you do get a little bit more of the ball, and maybe out wide you rely on people to get you the ball.

To work under Brendan Rodgers would certainly be a good move for Ainsley Maitland-Niles but the most important thing for the player is to go somewhere he can play in his preferred position, which is in midfield.

Even though I started out at right-back, I actually enjoy the contrast of playing both at full-back and in midfield. Both require physical attributes and a lot of energy.

Playing in midfield is a different ball game. You have to be on the half-turn all the time, have a different picture in your head of what is behind you and in front of you. Playing at right-back is different again.

I would say I am more comfortable in the centre of midfield. But when you are at a big club like Liverpool, you maybe get played in positions with which you might not be so familiar. But you have got to learn the different roles, because it gives you a better opportunity to play.

When the manager asks me to play somewhere, I play there. But my best position is midfield.

Yes, he is not unused to playing in midfield, but at the same time he's not used to playing there either.

For me it's best to play midfield but if the team needs it, I can play anywhere.

Sad to hear Paul Scholes is retiring, what a player! Top class and a great role model for any young English midfield player!

Being in midfield, in general, you don't have a lot of time to think, and in the Premier League, that's even less of the case. You just don't have time to think.

I used to find most joy with those long, bursting runs from your own box where the opposition's central midfield player has to track you. It gives them a decision to make: do they pass you on to a defender, or do they go all the way with you.

With no one collecting his knockdowns, what was Crouch supposed to do, juggle the ball with his head until the midfield support arrived?

I can bring my drive, I can get behind centre-halves, get on the other side of midfield players, score goals. That's what I can bring to a team when I am at my best.

At Rennes, I played more down the left wing, but also down the right and sometimes in midfield. At Dortmund, it was the same: I alternated wings. I don't have problems with the position I'll take up.

I know when I step into midfield I have to sharpen my feet up and be more aware of what's around me, at centre back it's more about timing, positioning and communication.

I've said all along from day one centre-back is the position I feel most comfortable in but if I'm asked to play right-back or midfield I'll go and do a job there.

Speaking as a midfield player myself, I know it's easier to make your runs into the box from that deeper, more central position. You can gauge where the ball is going to land and how best to time your run.

Frank Lampard was always the player I tried to model myself on. The amount of goals he scored from midfield was incredible. On and off the pitch, he was what I wanted to be.

Busquets reads everything. Players like Busquets or Xabi Alonso in midfield have the capacity to read the whole game.

If you are playing on the left of a four-man midfield, there are a lot more defensive duties to do, so you can't find the times to keep attacking. But if you're on the left of a 4-3-3, I find that position really good as well.

I have been playing box-to-box more for Everton as a two, so I have felt comfortable in that position, but anywhere across the midfield I can play.

I see myself as a mix between number six and number eight in central midfield - this is the best position for me, as a box-to-box midfielder.