A quality player is a quality player.
Sam Allardyce
Jay Jay Okocha. On and off the field he was the captain you looked for.
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.
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.
As the game changes you have to change with it.
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.
Whoever you are playing and whatever you are playing against you have to weigh up tactically how you approach that game. That has always been a part of my make-up, having made my way through every division and finding out what management is all about.
Believe me, I look back on West Ham in a good way.
It's difficult in your life when both parents pass so quickly and you're not really that old when they move on. There is a big gap in your life. There's a hole. You learn to live with it but never forget it.
In adversity you have to become stronger and make sure you don't make those mistakes again so you learn from it.
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.
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.
My confidence is in myself and how I run a football club and I've been doing that for many, many years now.
My model is much deeper than looking after players. My model is understanding the industry, working within it.
I have always said that managers stay in a job when they win football matches.
What is entertainment? Entertainment is the master of defence in Europe - Simeone.
My parents are from Scotland and my sister and brother were both born in Scotland so my heritage is from there.
As a manager, you look at who is going to get the fans on the edge of the seats.
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.
Man-management is my biggest asset, to help the players enjoy themselves and be better than they already are.
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.
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.
When will the first manager manage at a professional level having learned his trade on 'FIFA 16,' '17,' or '18?' I've watched my grandson on it, I've watched him buy players and sell them to get to the top of the league and it's teaching him how to manage. The knowledge base that they build up would be very interesting down the line.
I've always thought Everton was a great club.
It's extremely depressing that a country of this magnitude, and where it thinks it lies in itself, can allow so many foodbanks to be operating in this country.
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.
Everybody walks around talking about, 'Sam Allardyce's style is not good enough, he doesn't play the right way' and so on and so forth and it is a massive problem for me. People believe it. You believe the false lies, the false implications. Football does that - it believes that lie sometimes.
It is very important to me to communicate with the fans and not hide what's going on behind the scenes.
It's always a good time to play against a team when they come back from Europe, whether it's the Europa League or Champions League.
My dad was a pretty social animal when he wasn't working.
Any football club that is any good is down to the manager more than anything else.
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.
When does every fan like the manager?
It is about trying to entertain and win, that is the ultimate, but you have to keep winning first to change the things that need to change.
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.
Teams with limited budgets will always find times tough and results won't always go your way.
Defending is an art, everybody has forgotten it.
Ambition is important for any manager or coach, owner or director.
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.
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.
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.
No matter what people say outside of football, we don't work for money, we work for the love of the game and the money is something that follows.
As much as I liked Wolves as a boy and it was a childhood dream to play and perhaps manage for the club, I've come to Bolton and this is where I want to stay.
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.
One of my best friendships dwindled in the pub business - we still talk, but it challenged that friendship too much - and that taught me to go into football and find people that I can have good relations with but without being overly friendly.
If I got sacked because my results weren't good enough at Everton, I accept it, but getting sacked when they finish eighth, it is ridiculous. In fact, it is ludicrous.
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.
Busquets has been a great player for Spain and Barcelona, don't get me wrong. He's a very effective player and is the first pick for every manager because he plays such a simple game. But we laud him as a genius, whereas our own we don't, we criticise.
Since Newcastle I've had a fantastic time at Blackburn and then here, at West Ham.
Football is a worldwide business consortium and to satisfy that best you need to find the best players.
