The truth is I don't feel too bad for my age. I actually have a better shape now than I used to.

When you're winning games, everyone thinks everything the manager says and does is fantastic. Then it goes the other way, and those earlier criticisms of players can backfire.

I wouldn't want to go out six nights a week and watch somebody's reserves playing to check out a footballer to see if we're going to buy him.

The whole kiss-and-tell thing is a negative approach that often happens in a World Cup. We will see negative stories about the players and it can affect their confidence and the overall performance of the national team on the pitch, let alone the bid to actually stage the competition.

He's got great credentials by winning the World Cup, but he did it with Brazil - my granny could probably have managed Brazil to World Cup success.

Ooh, it's too ­embarrassing to share my innermost romantic secrets - although I have written Danielle the odd poem. If anything they are more comedic than romantic. They used to be well ­received but that was before she started studying Shakespeare at drama college. Now I feel so ­inept.

You can never really justify wages in the entertainment business, but it is what it is.