I developed a mechanism so that whatever mistakes I made, I would bounce straight back. Whatever was happening off the pitch, I could put it to one side and maintain my form. Call it mental resilience or a strong mind, but that is what we mean when we talk about experience in a football team.

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.

A coach once told me there are four factors that determine a players' performance: his tactical awareness, his physical condition, his technical ability and his mental strength.

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.

While we're living the dreams we have as children fade away'. Not if you support United!

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.

One year's poor form remains a blip but if it happens next year, you can say it's a trend.