Mark Hughes

“Sometimes the manager actually is the glue that holds everything together, and when you take that manager out, sometimes that's when things start to go really wrong.”

“My job as a manager is to get the best out of your players. Sometimes you get it wrong, and you won't get the response that you want, but we all face that every single day.”

“I remember Ron Atkinson used to play in the sessions at Manchester United when he was the manager. Rated himself as a player.”

“If we are going to ask questions of the defensive guys, then we are going to ask questions of the guys at the top end as well.”

“Attacking football is what I want to watch as a manager; it's what I want from my teams. It's easier to be destructive and get people behind the ball than to be constructive and creative.”

“You can't manage one size fits all; you've just got to know your group and know what ticks players' boxes.”

“As a player, when you get beaten, you can comfort yourself by saying you did reasonably well. As a manager, when you get beaten, you think it's all your fault, but 70,000 people and all those watching on television know it's your fault.”

“I suddenly thought, if I was going to make a go of it, I was going to have to look after myself and not keep apologising for knocking people over. That transformed my career.”

“There's a full Football League programme every Tuesday, so I see those games and get to check out people like Paul Jones and Robbie Savage by playing against them.”

“If you feel a bit aggrieved or hard done by, you probably need the break just to reset yourself and give yourself time for different learning - to get out there and experience different things.”

“As a player, I had no idea whatsoever about getting a team ready for a game, what it entails.”

“There are certain games where you have to hold your hands up, take your medicine, and move on to the next one.”

“The perception is that the Stoke players were one-dimensional: that they could only play in a certain way, and that was the top and bottom of their capabilities.”

“You've got two huge clubs in Manchester that have got 'celebrity' managers, huge resources, massive turnovers. They can generate resources the rest of us can only imagine, and that's before the TV money even kicks in.”

“Competing in the Premier League is more difficult than winning trophies in plenty of countries abroad.”

“As a player, you just pick up your kit, go out, and train or wait for the ref to blow the whistle.”

“You have to win football matches, and if you don't, you allow people to criticise you.”

“If you are loose and not quite taking clear-cut chances in training, then clearly you are not going to do that come match time.”

“I try, when I go into places, not to belittle what's gone before, because I know how difficult it is to manage, and everybody does it differently.”

“I would like to think that during my time at Stoke - and other clubs I was at - I was always a manager that wanted to play in the right way, with purpose, with drive, and to try to dictate to the opposition if you could.”