I had the opportunity to play in the Premier League, and I did.
The Premier League is a competitive league where strikers can be brought in for x amount of pounds and it might block your pathway as a young player. To go abroad, if it gives you the opportunity to play at the highest level in that country then I think it’s a no-brainer.
I’ve had the privilege of playing in our top seven leagues and the main differences when stepping up are organisation, athleticism and decisiveness. Believe me, the gap is even more evident when you achieve the holy grail of the Premier League.
I watch a lot of football and you hardly ever see Premier League players go down with cramp. The fitness, the intensity of Premier League football is phenomenal.
The Manchester City game is what the Premier League is all about. You have to thrive on those big occasions.
The Premier League is a competition with very quick football.
I want to show I can play at my best for a whole Premier League season.
While I could still play in the Premier League, I really did not want to go abroad. I was not thinking about winding down my career.
I want to be an established Premier League striker that is starting week in, week out.
Is it harder to win the Premier League than La Liga? Yes.
I don’t really pay attention to the long-term, I take short steps – that is what I have done through my whole career, from non-league to the Premier League.
I do believe I’m a Premier League player, and I do believe I’m an England international when I’m fit and on form.
In the Premier League, there are all the most important coaches in Europe, maybe the world.
It was a great time working at Reading, especially the first season getting very close to going to the Premier League.
When the club offers you the job, they say what the club expects from you. If the club says to you, ‘I want you to win the Champions League, the Premier League, the Carabao Cup,’ you say, ‘OK, you want to win this and this and this? Can you give me this and this and this?’
I would like to win the Premier League.
You can focus on the ranking events but I do miss the Premier League because it’s massive.
Getting to the Premier League is significant enough. But staying in it is another thing entirely, particularly when you’ve not spent much and kept the core of the team that was promoted from the Championship and was not even fancied to do so in the first place.
Ideally, you want a defender with Premier League experience.
The ball is just whipped off you in the Premier League. You have to maintain focus.
If you are not a good team, you will never get to the final day of the Premier League season or the final of the FA Cup.
It is not so easy to turn yourself into one of the big clubs in the Premier League and also the Champions League.
In the Premier League it is difficult, the midfield is very congested; there is a lot of pressure and the game is very fast. So it’s hard for you to spend a lot of time with the ball; you have to be very fast, you have to think long before the ball reaches you.
It’s just about keeping the momentum going, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s Champions League or Premier League or whatever trophy you’re going for, you’ve got to focus on the opponent that lies ahead.
If I’m on the bench in a Premier League game, I’m thinking, ‘What can I do coming off the bench?’
I always dreamed of getting in WWE and becoming a big star. But it’s not something you could ever guarantee. It’s like a kid wanting to play in the Premier League.
You can take a sidewards step in the Premier League, go to a team in the Championship or come to a team in League One.
There are not many managers in the Premier League willing to put homegrown players in and trust them.
The Premier League is a physical league if you want to compare it to other leagues.
Ideally, you want a defender with Premier League experience.
As an outsider, I have to say that the Premier League is a very attractive league.
If, just because it’s the Premier League, I started trying to play the simple pass instead of trying the harder pass, that is not the type of person I am, to be honest.
I dream of winning the Premier League, of course.
After starting off with the Indian Premier League, I thought something more can be done for sports.
In the Premier League, we have to play a lot, and we always need the support of the fans.
Inside me there are two people. One is a very aggressive – I want to win; I won the Premier League, but now I want to win on Saturday. I want to win next season – and is never satisfied.
The Premier League is very difficult.
The Premier League is really strong but I’m not a player who likes new challenges just for the sake of it.
I was attracted by the opportunity of managing in the Premier League.
It is hard if you have got family and kids and you have to leave them on Christmas Day to go and train but listen, we are a small minority of lucky players. We have obviously worked hard for this, but we are lucky enough to have the ability to play in the Premier League.
Of course it would be nice to go to another Champions League final and hopefully win it again one day, but for me, the Premier League is the best trophy to have.
Being in midfield, in general, you don’t have a lot of time to think, and in the Premier League, that’s even less of the case. You just don’t have time to think.
I was always reading about the Premier League. It has been a big dream and one that came true. But it is not the end of the dream; it is just starting.
I am a huge fan of the Premier League, but do you think it will maintain its attractiveness if the Champions League is only an affair between English clubs and one or two others?
Alan Hutton and I are always fighting the corner for Scottish football. It’s a really tough league down here with a lot of quality players trying to get into the Premier League.
The double sessions are tough. The manager wants us to get fit, wants us to work hard. And that’s because the Premier League is so tough. We need it. Something we have to do.
Premier League is one thing. World Cup is totally different.
The Premier League is always difficult – Champions League or not.
I absolutely love playing in Europe. The Premier League is fantastic, but once you get a taste for it, it’s the place to be.
Me and my dad sat down in May and we spoke and thought the next step would be for me to push into a Premier League team and we felt the better route for me was to leave Chelsea.
I’m enjoying the Premier League; I’m enjoying playing for Southampton – I love the club, and I love the supporters.
The idea that I might finish my career without going to the Premier League, it is not possible.
I like the style of football in England and the style of Arsenal, and I’m very happy to play in the Premier League.
I’ve shown people what I can do and want to establish myself as a Premier League player.
Coaching for tackles? That’s something you do with seven-year-olds, when you show them how to stand and when to make a block. It is one of the basics of the game. No Premier League manager needs to coach it.
Once you have had 10 seasons at this level, the next season is not going to be so different. For a young player with only 20 appearances in the Premier League there is an opportunity to improve.
Lots of people think that the Premier League would be good for me, but my mum is Spanish, and I really have that dream to play over there.
It’s important that we have the right mentality because it’s not easy to win games in the Premier League.
Manchester United is like the American team in the Premier League, and everyone knows the weight of it back home. It is so exciting for me to wear a badge that is well known.
The Premier League is the best league.
I watched the Premier League every weekend with my dad – the highlight shows, everything.
It’s a league that you really have to get used to. If you’re coming from another one, it’s a tough league. Getting the experience playing in a Premier League team and getting hopefully consistent games will be huge for me.
Since I was a little boy, I’ve watched the Premier League and seen Liverpool playing in the Champions League on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
The Premier League is tough because, as soon as you lose a couple of games, you’re out of the race for the league.
We want to play on the highest level and the Champions League, other than the Premier League for us, is the highest level.
The Premier League is an extremely difficult competition.
I want to go back to play in the Premier League. I feel it’s where I belong.
I’ve represented my country and played in the Premier League a long time so I am pretty realistic and confident in what I can bring.
There are so many great players in the Premier League and of course the big teams are always the favourites, but the teams below them also play good football. The mixture of foreign and English players works really well.
I don’t see any difference between any games, whether it’s a Premier League game, a cup game, an FA Cup game; all those games are the same for me. I want to score in every single game I play.
