Top 70 Graeme Souness Quotes

You get a sense when you’re a player of where the game’s going and you work your way around that.

Both my parents were mild, gentle people.

I’ve played at Anfield and you can look at The Kop and there are blue pockets all over. It’s another level in Glasgow.

If players cannot see what’s going on in a game and adapt then they are no good and they will not win anything.

I accept that I sometimes overstepped the mark, but I can tell you that, off the pitch, I’ve never been an overly aggressive person.

I don’t think anybody is looking at Mario Balotelli and thinking ‘I’m going to work as hard as him.’

I think if you’re raising your foot high whether it’s an overhead kick or not, you’re risking a red card.

Apart from actually playing football, I am at my most happiest with either my dogs, or planting in the garden.

All top players have an edge to them.

I get a real buzz going into a stadium, a full house, the anticipation of how the game is going to pan out.

The world’s best when I was growing up was Pele and he would have been a great player now, too, but Messi surpasses him.

People always have game plans to take care of Ronaldo, but very few people succeed in keeping him quiet for 90 minutes.

I worry for Scottish football.

Whatever happens will happen, that’s the rollercoaster of life. What matters is how you handle the slumps.

I got the Liverpool job when I was 38.

It’s very easy for people to overlook how important a good goalkeeper is in a team.

Benteke is a threat when he’s fit, fully motivated and firing on all cylinders.

The strikers are the ones that normally go for big, big money because they’re the ones who decide the games, nine times out of 10.

You don’t get a manager’s job at a big club unless it is in a mess.

Man Utd have always been the glamour team, always been the team that attracted attention even when they were not winning things.

A football club’s board of directors’ job is to attract and get the best football players and keep them at the football club.

The stature of Liverpool means they want to win trophies.

I worked out long ago that I wasn’t cut out for management. My personality doesn’t lend itself to the job, especially what it’s become. By the time I stopped, the good times weren’t compensating for the bad.

To play as an anchor man you have to be extremely disciplined and a lot of the time you’re attracted to the ball but can’t go there because if you don’t get there or it breaks down there is a hole.

I’ve never courted popularity.

Historically, Jose Mourinho is not a manager who chops and changes his team and he’s not big on rotation.

I first learned what a rivalry really was at White Hart Lane.

We’ve got to keep the cost of watching football down. If that means players getting the same money for a few years rather than a 25 per cent increase every time, that’s fine.

You never forget when you beat – or when you lose – to your city rival.

I can earn a great deal more money by playing football outside Scotland than I could in Scotland, but I’d still like to be player-manager of Rangers one day.

If you start spending big money, what you’re ultimately judged on is how your buys perform.

It’s very difficult, when you’re in and out of the team as a player, to get any sort of rhythm.

If you came to my house you would not think an ex-footballer lived there. I’ve got nothing on the walls or the shelves from my time in the game.

It’s very hard to retain the Premier League.

You can’t win any trophies unless you’ve got a top goalkeeper.

I go to anything at the cinema that gets the hype. I’m so easily seduced by it.

You can talk about systems until you’re blue in the face but that’s secondary – if you’re closing down, if you’re first to the ball, it doesn’t really matter what system you’ve got.

Mark Viduka, Nicolas Anelka and Michael Owen are all top strikers and the facts speak for themselves.

If you are making mistakes at centre-back then inevitably that results in an effort on your goal and your goalkeeper has to make a save.

Liverpool will always be the place I look back in terms of the place where I enjoyed playing, it was just unique.

You can Google how many goals a player has scored in the last few seasons, or against this particular side, but our job is to point the viewers to something that is happening in the game that they may not have seen or thought of.

No one’s career is full of highs. Somewhere down the line you are going to get kicked where it hurts and it’s how you deal with that.

When you talk about those Liverpool greats, they had players who won everything. Some great team men, great goalscorers, longevity.

Liverpool are a very hard team to beat in front of their own crowd.

The one thing I learnt going to Italy was there’s no real change in how the game should be played, but how players look after themselves.

When you go into the really big games you look at your team and think ‘where are we weak, where are we vulnerable.’

Continuity is what makes success, but it is all about getting over the humps on the road to that; that’s what football is all about.

If you win the Premier League it means you have managed the difficult moments of the season better than anyone else.

I was always – and I have no idea where it came from – a confident boy. And when I look at how I’ve lived my life that’s how I’ve lived it.

Don’t get me wrong, growing up in Edinburgh, I was all too familiar with the Hibs and Hearts rivalry. My father grew up in Leith – Hibee territory – just off of Easter Road on Albert Street.

In 2017, Kante has been fantastic and is almost two players at times. He covers every blade of grass and he’s not short of technique. He would get in any team because there’s room for that type of player no matter what system you play or level you play at.

Kante senses dangers and knows where the ball is going to be. He has that in his DNA. Paul Pogba has more in his DNA to be up there, create.

I joined Liverpool in 1978. I was the record signing between English clubs.

I’ve won something like 27 trophies in my lifetime. There are people out there who are very good players and yet they’ve won nothing. I won 10 trophies in three different countries as a manager: I’ve got nothing to prove. I’ve done it.

When you play at home in European football, you’ve got to come up with a happy balance where you get on the front foot and try to win it without leaving yourself vulnerable.

I can remember Bob Paisley was never happy.

I have nothing to prove to anyone but myself.

It is really strange how life works, isn’t it?

I’m not sure about Richarlison. I like him, I liked him when he was at Watford and he started well at Everton but would his preferred position be out on the left and cutting in? I’m not sure.

I was not satisfied at Rangers, not by a long way. I have hassles there, I had obstacles placed in front of me, and certain things never sat easily on my shoulders, and never will.

Some people can get there in three or four games, some need eight or nine, but after 11 games, if you’ve been playing regularly, you’re match-fit.

I found that being top put all the pressure on second place, not first. The focus is on the second-place team, who can’t afford to slip up again.

You can’t look into a crystal ball but what you can say is if money is put on the table and you get half your signings right then you are going to be better next time around.

We need to take good care of football’s image.

For a lot of lads, they grow up going to matches with fathers or mates. Those Saturday or Sundays where you head over to the stadium probably with a scarf on – knowing every word, every clap and every pause to the supporters’ chants.

The world is changing, football should definitely too.

I much prefer films based on fact rather than fictional stories.

Football is the most entertaining game in the world to watch because it’s end to end with lots of things happening.

In my youth fashion was about moustaches and curly hair.

I think I speak for all the pundits when I say we are just giving an opinion. I am asked to give an opinion based on my experiences in football and based on what I see out on the pitch.