Gerard Houllier's thoughts on the matter international football echo mine. He thinks that what the national coaches are doing is like taking the car from his garage without even asking permission. They will then use the car for ten days and abandon it in a field without any petrol left in the tank. We then have to recover it, but it is broken down. Then a month later they will come to take your car again, and for good measure you're expected to be nice about it.

Sometimes you have to swallow the unswallowable.

Who is the Best Player in the World? Leo Messi. Who is the Best Player Ever? Leo Messi!

Everyone plays the ball over the top and, at the moment, we only concede goals from crosses or balls over the top. I feel we will adapt to that.

Nobody has enough talent to live on talent alone. Even when you have talent, a life without work goes nowhere.

For a while, you could decide when you loan the player out whether he plays against you or not, and I always decided that he could play against us. But I must say I didn't get any protection from the media because when the player I loaned out scored against us, it's 'aaahhh, look at him, stupid...'

I am supposed to take the bullets and absorb them. Like a bear, a polar bear.