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.

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.

If you don't like someone, don't shake their hand.

I'd say Carrick has the qualities of a Scholes, Andrea Pirlo and Sergio Busquets.

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.

In my 20 years in football, I was fortunate enough never to have experienced relegation. And while there is the pressure of expectations at the top of the league, at the bottom it comes in fear and trepidation, which is almost worse.

It is one of my pet hates when I see players who have agents who do everything for them. They don't know how to set up their own bank accounts, they don't know what they are spending their money on and they can't make their own decisions.