Gary Neville

There are some agents who do a good job looking after players but there are others who stifle and mollycoddle them. ”

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. ”

As football gets more globalised, 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. ”

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. ”

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. ”

For sportsmen or women who want to be champions, the mind can be as important, if not more important, than any other part of the body. ”

There are lots of concerns facing English football but for me the major one is the way in which football clubs are run by owners, whether they are growing organically and sustainably and how that is being policed by the football authorities. ”

Nothing improves your confidence and brings a team together more than winning a cup. ”

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. ”

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. ”