It's a strange atmosphere always over there, it is darker and less glamorous, and you don't feel as high. It is a different kind of test - can you raise your level in a less exciting environment and perhaps still a very difficult one?

At some clubs success is accidental. At Arsenal it is compulsory.

In some ways England is more liberal than France, but I also find it more intrusive. But when you go abroad you have to accept the ways of where you live. I have to respect that.

I have only been here since 1996 but between 1966 and 1996 England had thirty years without foreign players and didn't win any more competitions in that time.

Young players need freedom of expression to develop as creative players... they should be encouraged to try skills without fear of failure.

Sometimes you have to swallow the unswallowable.

I believe the target of anything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes an art. When you read some books they are fantastic, the writer touches something in you that you know you would not have brought out of yourself. He makes you discover something interesting in your life. If you are living like an animal, what is the point of living? What makes daily life interesting is that we try to transform it to something that is close to art.