Top 22 Rickie Lambert Quotes

Even though I’m 32 I feel like a kid again. I’ve got so much enthusiasm for the game. The fact that I’m playing under Brendan Rodgers and for Liverpool, I just can’t wait.

I’m a striker and any chance I get I want to score.

It was so disappointing the way it ended but, to play for England in the World Cup, was still the highlight of my career.

I’ve played football every day since I was five, and I’m just knackered.

I went to West Brom, and I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, and Tony Pulis was a very physically-demanding manager, and I couldn’t get around the pitch like he wanted, so I moved on.

The amount of pressure the guys are under from the English media is fierce.

If I’d got to the top too early, I would not have been a success. I was physically and mentally ready.

The main reason I quit was my lower back. I’ve had problems for a few years. It was affecting my movement and power. I had to have various injections and procedures.

Luckily I was financially okay, so I had a choice, I didn’t have to stay in the game. A lot of players have to play as long as they can. I didn’t.

I was getting well paid but I never started playing football for the money.

I could have sat on the bench for a third year but I moved to West Brom from Liverpool to play. I love Liverpool and I’ve played a lot of games in my career so if I wanted to have a comfy life, I could have stayed at Liverpool.

But when I joined up with England I felt lucky to be there, and it was the same at Liverpool. And when I look back now I realise I lost something mentally as a player, by allowing that to happen.

I know how big Liverpool are – and it means everything to me – but I know what is important; I know it’s what I do on the pitch and the minutes I play. I know that’s what matters, and that’s what I’ll be focused on.

And I probably had three seasons when I was on the slide, and I kind of fell out of love with football, and that was it, so I retired.

I’m desperate to enjoy my football again and play until I retire. Obviously I’m 34 so I don’t want to be sitting on the bench, I don’t want to be remembering my last few years of my career like that.

You’ve got to dream. You’ve got to believe, that’s what I’ve done all my life. I’m rolling with it at the minute. It seems like it’s not stopping. Who knows where it will end?

I could have stayed at West Brom but I want to be constantly involved, I want to be relied upon like I have been all my career. It’s been horrible not to feel that.

You have to adapt to each level and it improves you when you’re in better teams. That’s what’s happened to me over the years. Every team I’ve played in has just got better and better. It’s become a lot easier.

I never really got taught to be a striker in the first place and then I never got taught how to be a lone striker.

That feeling you had in the lower leagues, the hunger you need to win and even earn wages, has never left me.

I have always dreamt of playing for Liverpool, but I did kind of think the chance of playing for them had gone. I didn’t think the chance would come.

I thought I was decent at table tennis, but when I saw Ross Barkley and Raheem Sterling, I thought, ‘maybe not’.