Paul Merson

“You do not want to be playing good teams and always let them have 70 per cent of the ball, and expect it to work every time. That does not happen often.”

“If I have one piece of advice to give to people - talk. Nothing ever gets better if you don't talk.”

“Never worry about what people think. That's what drove me to drinking a lot of time, worrying about what people thought of me.”

“Everyone knows me from my time at Arsenal. No-one really remembers me at Boro or Villa.”

“Before, I would literally watch people ringing me trying to help me, but I wouldn't take the calls. It's the worst place to be, having that fear that it's never going to get better. You have to talk.”

“When you start drinking, everything goes out of the window. You don't care about anything. You don't even care about yourself.”

“If I can help one person by sharing my story then in my eyes it's a success.”

“If you aren't going to have a lot of the ball, you've got to play when you've got the ball, otherwise you end up giving it straight back and we start all over again.”