Do you enjoy the analysis side of the game?
I used to watch my games back more I think, whereas now I’m at the stage where I’m old enough to know when I’ve had a good game or a bad game. If I’ve been rubbish, I know it! If I’ve been good I embrace it, but I always want to keep pushing. I never want to be comfortable, I want to be kept on my toes.
Who in current squad would make the best manager, and why?
Probably Jorginho. I’ve played against him and with him for years, and seen him play for Italy, and I would say that out of everyone I’ve ever played with, he’s in the top three football brains I’ve ever seen. The way he thinks about the game, his knowledge, I just think he’ll go on to have a really good managerial career because of how he sees the game.
What do you think football can learn from other sports?
In football we are very lucky, there are 11 of us on the pitch and if one makes a mistake there are 10 others to pick them up. But if you had a team where everyone had the individual mentality to push themselves through, like in an individual sport like golf or tennis, then you could go to a whole new level as a team. I see that in this team all the time, players who just want to win, and you see that a lot in individual sports a lot. Footballers have a lot of down time, a lot of travelling, staying in hotels, whereas individual sports have to think more about their own recovery and preparation, the mental side of it too. So football could dip into that more