Top 33 Jonjo Shelvey Quotes

I want to be competitive but I need to smooth some of the edges or I will be the one who suffers.

I had a year out playing local football before I went to Charlton at 12. West Ham was the club I supported so it was a hard decision to leave.

I welcome the responsibility of being a key player. I want to put on a show every week. I want to be a leader.

I remember walking through Romford with my sister and I had my bald head and people would stare. My sister would get upset about it and ask people what they were looking at. Now, I’ve got to the stage that I don’t even bother shaving it some days.

People can say what they want. But I’m the one who goes out there and trains every day as hard as I can.

No one’s going to remember you after football. No one cares about you after football.

When I was eight or nine, we had a goal in the back yard of our council flat. We used to flip it over the back fence and take it out onto the estate. Everyone would come out and we’d play for hours, there were cars screeching to a halt when the ball went on the road.

I’ve always known I could play football. I went to Arsenal and West Ham as a kid, but I took a year out because I wanted to play with my mates and get that competitiveness back. I got that fighting spirit and I never want to lose that.

I’d have liked to have played in the Gascoigne era, but there is so much sport science around, you have to change with it.

When you die, I think you re-live your life in a different dimension, in a different world but I don’t believe in aliens.

Where I grew up, in Harold Hill, it was rough and it still is now. I used to live in a little council flat, next to the shops, and there was always trouble, people getting stabbed.

When you’re playing once and then not playing for six games, I don’t care what any footballer says, you don’t feel involved. You don’t feel part of the team.

If I’m not playing well, or I’m trying things and they’re not coming off, the one thing I will always do is work hard. And I think, as a fan, that’s the least you can ask for.

I couldn’t care less what people have got to say as long as I have the backing from the people that matter – the gaffer, family, and my team-mates – and they know what I am like as a person on and off the pitch. That’s all that matters.

I’ve got alopecia so I’ve got bald patches all over my head and I grew up with that, so obviously I’ve become accustomed to it, but it’s still not nice when people are saying it in your industry when they know you’ve got a condition.

If I stay mentally right during a game, then I feel like I can be up there with the best.

I get labelled lazy maybe because of my body language; I’m quite laid-back.

I have always been confident in my ability on the ball and I don’t think anyone should ever doubt me in terms of that.

I have tactics that calm me down and mellow me out so I go in to the game calm and ready instead of punching the walls.

I think I always stressed myself out as a kid, and alopecia can be caused by stress.

Every decision I’ve made in my career was just to play, to try and get as much game-time as possible. I can’t say I’ve got too many regrets.

It’s a business and it’s a short career. You need to get in, earn as much money as possible. Get out.

With so many training sessions you forget what you have done when you look back at the end of the week so you have the little book and write the date down and there you go.

People I played with at Swansea will tell you that I wasn’t laid-back when I was there. I just wanted to win so much on the training pitch that I’d end up falling out with people.

I’d gone very quickly from playing in a park with my mates to sitting next to Wayne Rooney at dinner. It was a bit weird.

If there’s a problem and you want to do something after then we’ll go and talk about it after, but for me you shake hands at the end of the game and get on with it.

My dad brought me up to respect people but if you have your opinion and feel you’re in the right, not to be afraid to say it.

The way I see it is, the better you play, the more money you’re going to earn. It’s like working in a car garage, the more cars you sell, the more money you’re going to earn at the end of the day. It’s how life works.

I was at Arsenal but I didn’t like the manager of the under-10s at the time so I went to West Ham where my brother played.

I understand football’s changing and I’m evolving with it but stats are stats. You can run 15km if you like but I’m a footballer.

I hate getting the ball and passing it sideways or backwards. I hate it.

I’m a winner and I’ve had that instilled in me since I was a kid and sometimes it goes over the edge.

I wasn’t happy playing one or two games then coming out of the team. I wanted to carry on playing week in, week out.