You get a bad result one week and it's a natural reaction to go out in the next game and put it behind you and do well.

If I saw an ugly bird but she was a celebrity, she wouldn't attract me at all.

I've heard people say it looks as if I don't care and I've certainly read that, but the way I play is natural. I don't think I can change it. I know I'm working as hard as the next man, even if it doesn't always look that way.

For too long now, European football authorities have not taken the problem of racism in the game seriously and refuse to acknowledge how widespread the problem is.

Football is the most important thing in my life, but I do have a life outside football and this is one part. The TV, the music, the fashion - it all goes to make up Rio Ferdinand.

I could never get bored talking about him, he was my favourite player. I loved watching him because he did everything you'd want to see in a footballer. He could dictate the pace of a game; he could take it by the scruff of the neck and control it; he could score decisive goals; he could make the killer pass; he could switch the play, open teams up, slow the game down, quicken it up; whatever was needed. He would take the ball anywhere on the pitch He was such a selfless footballer, too Scholesy was the man, all right.

Most professional players are their own biggest critics. Some of the things you read in the papers that strike you as bang out of order will already have been thought by the players themselves