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

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.

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've always got 20 per cent of a dressing room that won't be happy with their manager because they want to play more often. There are players who will have been moaning all year about not being in the team, but when they got their chance they failed to take it.

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

If you're scoring two goals at Stamford Bridge, it tells you that you are a player.

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.

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.

The stature of Liverpool means they want to win trophies.

If you're going to be champions you've got to deal with the challenges that come along in many different ways.

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.

I can remember Bob Paisley was never happy.

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

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.

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

I got the Liverpool job when I was 38.

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.

Liverpool will always be a very special place to me.

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.

When you're a player, you only really have to look after yourself. And then you go into management, and you've got 30 players' welfare to keep an eye on.

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.

Anfield is a unique place to play on European nights.

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

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.

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

The crowd are more understanding at Anfield than at any other football ground.

You have to defend properly.

As a manager, when you can't get your first target do you go and spend on your second, third, fourth choice?

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.

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.

It's the one that the players fear. The No 1 is the ACL - the anterior cruciate ligament - closely followed by a real tear of the hamstring, because you know that's the one injury that kids you.

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

It's very hard to retain the Premier League.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

I think you find Liverpool fans are extremely passionate, as are Evertonians, but I think it goes to another level in Glasgow.

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.

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

I was sold by Middlesbrough to Liverpool for a record fee between two English clubs and then won European Cups at Anfield, but I couldn't have been prepared for Rangers. I was a fan as a kid and attended a lot of European nights at Ibrox. I knew the club were big. But not how big.

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

My career has been the best part of 50 years. If I had to go through it all again, I'd love to, warts and all. There have been so many good things that they outweigh the bad. But I do have regrets.

I think I'm lucky in that I can park things. I don't dwell. I've got a selective memory. I only remember the good things. I don't know what a psychologist or a psychiatrist would say about that.

Both my parents were mild, gentle people.

I came from a working class family. We lived in a prefab. We had nothing, but we had everything. I was out of the house at 12 to live with my grandmother, who was on her own, and I was expected to be the man about the house. At 15, I was living in digs in London after signing for Tottenham.

I have nothing to prove to anyone but myself.