You never expect to,

The Spanish league is fantastic, but it has not got the passion the English Premiership has got.

The bottom line is that I wanted to come back and play in the Premier League again and wake up on a Saturday morning and really fancy getting out there and playing in front of...

We were behind Mike, definitely. Training has been as good as I can remember it, and we have all been happy. It is unfortunate Mike has decided to leave.

I think everyone would say they want an English manager. I’m no different. As long as he is the best man for the job. But the main criteria is obviously ‘is he good enough?’ If...

It’s a great feeling to finally score, … I couldn’t have picked a better time.

On the journey home from those talks, my mind was spinning,

We were all in a foreign country playing our football and some things are great and at some times some things are more difficult.

The World Cup is six weeks away so I have no doubts I will be fit.

In the second half it started to come together a little bit better,

Yeah, it was frustrating,

I’ve watched as much as I can, and it has given everyone in Britain a big lift.

We’re very confident ahead of Germany, I wouldn’t swap our squad for anyone else’s,

We played together quite a bit for England , and you never expect to play with him again, especially when he announced that this was going to be his last season.

I wanted to get back to the Premiership,

I’ve had a bit of a head-spinning couple of days,

It will be an honor to play for him,

It is a simple process and should ensure that I’m back playing for Newcastle before the end of the season.

There are so many emotions – exhaustion, relief. It’s probably not going to sink in for a couple of weeks.

What would happen to me if I stayed at Madrid? How much would I miss European football if I signed for Newcastle?

He’s fantastic on the ground but he’s obviously really tall

I don’t have any. I was sent to bed before the matches started

We didn’t fire in our first game out against South Africa last autumn, and it was the same story against England in the first game of the 2005 Six Nations,

I spoke to Liverpool and unfortunately that deal could not come off,

We’ve got a good team and a good squad and although you always need luck, we feel we’ve got a really good chance.

You dream of a dream start, scoring on your debut, winning the game, but you’ve got to be realistic in football. But there will be plenty of good times to come.

Wayne’s great at coming short and receiving the ball because he’s got the strength to hold it up.

Alan was a great help throughout and instrumental in my decision,

It’s a shame that when I’m back he’s done his knee, but us not playing together for 50 games is not going to take the edge off what has been a fantastic career for him.

The specialists have said that everything is healing fine but to speed the process they need to tighten the screw they inserted at the time of may operation in January.

I had a scan today and everything showed up clear, which I expected it to,

There’s not a whole lot of difference to what we normally play,

I don’t like the big fuss. I was hoping the deadline would be further forward so we could end this uncertainty. Now we are looking forward and I can be on the back pages for...

People will just fall in love with it

dovetail with each other really well.

Every one of his strengths is totally opposite to my strengths, … My game is not Wayne Rooney’s. My strengths aren’t coming off people and linking play up. My strength is seeing opportunities, knowing where...

We will go out and try and put out on a good performance against Poland,

One of my personal highlights, … It was soon after the World Cup and I felt all eyes were on me. When we walked off the pitch that day the Newcastle fans applauded us off....

The players are stunned because this is the worst thing that can happen to a footballer in his career. There will be scars for life.

He even offered to give up his number nine shirt but I have declined. Number 10 will do for me.

I don’t think there is any surprise that Michael got a couple today. Michael is a proven goal scorer. He got a couple of goals to get us on our way.

There are two mouths to feed.

I’m still feeling it a little but it’s going better by the day and as soon as I can train I will. If I can train fully by Thursday I’ll be available. The doctors are...

We might find out tomorrow in training,

It was a disappointing result but at least I’m playing, fit and looking forward to Saturday’s game (for Newcastle against Fulham in the Premier League),

When you put better teams in front of you, that’s when the big players rise to that occasion.

Fortunately I am a mentally strong person and believe I will learn from the experience and continue to improve as a player and person because of it

If you are going to come back at any place it’s St James’ with the crowd behind you.

All the Newcastle fans need to know is that I will be giving everything for their cause now,

It’s a far cry from the last World Cup, where we had a lot of injuries. We’ve got a clean bill of health, with the exception of John and the preparations have gone really well.