I would have been about seven years old when the formative years of my competitive football education began. I was playing in the local leagues around Manchester, playing against lads from tough areas who had been taught they had to fight for everything.

The rest of the Spice Girls wanted to invite the entire Bayern Munich team because they reckoned they'd never known blokes to be on top for 90 minutes and still come second.

There have been times when I've reflected on my international career and just thought: 'Well that was a massive waste of time.' Sorry for sounding sour, but my best mate, David Beckham, got butchered after the World Cup in 1998, then my brother, Phil, after Euro 2000.

Will any club dominate again? Are any club set up to dominate again? When you look at the clubs that have dominated they've usually got a core five, six or seven players who can stay there for 10 to 15 years. There is a continuity with the management. I'm not quite sure at the moment that I'm seeing the decision making at any of the top clubs to be able to suggest that domination is actually achievable again. Maybe in the future, but I'm not quite sure it'll happen very soon.

As football gets more globalized, it's probably more important than ever to have one or two players in your team who have grown up in the same streets or been to the same schools as the hard-core fans.

Something interesting has happened over the last 10 years in the Premier League. Players who once would have been discarded as expensive and too old have become important parts of title-winning squads.

I love the introduction of international managers and players into the Premier League. However Manchester United's principles through their history had always been: they will appoint a British manager, there will always promote youth, they will always play a certain style of football, they will always look to entertain. So to me the idea of appointing a British manager, David Moyes, appointing somebody who deserved that opportunity to step up, was the right principle.