 An image has stuck for most of my career and it isn't flattering. |
| The treble parade would have been the most perfect moment of my footballing life, but for the two people standing behind me, clearly already plotting their next move. |
| It's inevitable now, because everyone is a superstar, even if they're just an average player, and maybe that was part of the process set in motion when I signed that contract in 1994. |
| Nothing had changed in my routine, except that when I went down the chippy and got me special fried rice, it would be wrapped in a newspaper that had my picture all over it. |
| A goal is a goal no matter which end it goes in. I'm pleased to get off the mark again. |
| I was a boy, suddenly treated like the men and expected to act like them. |
| When I got there, all the pasta and science stuff hadn't quite caught on in England - things that were perfectly acceptable then wouldn't be tolerated now. |
| I don't want people losing respect for me as a player. I want to go out in every game and perform to the highest level. I have no retirement plans. I've had a lot of injuries but I want to continue playing. |
| It sounds mercenary and it smacks of rats leaving the sinking ship. But get real, when everyone is bailing out, you don't want to be the last man standing. |
| After taking temporary charge last season he took us from looking down at the fringes of another relegation scrap, to within a kick of getting into Europe. |
| I sometimes think I've needed a bit of an arm around me in my career - which I've not always got from certain managers and coaches who didn't understand me. |
| Maybe if I'd not been able to kick a ball it would have been different, but I doubt it because all my mates are decent blokes now, just normal fellas with families. |
| We had been getting some bad results, now it is up to us to make up the ground and catch Manchester United. |
| If you pray enough for things, I am proof that they can happen. I feel like a kid on Christmas day now, every day. It's something I have wanted for a long time and I am as happy as anyone to be here. It is great to be back at my first love. |
| It strikes me that these days, clubs don't even want players who can truly play any more; they just want athletes, quick guys who don't have a football brain, can just run and run; some of them, Jesus. I can never imagine acting like that. |
| I get paranoid about people staring at me. Even now I don't deal with people looking at me. I can't do it sometimes. I can't go out. I don't know how to react when people stare. |
