Troy Deeney

“I'm just a regular person. I treat every person the same. I like to think that I'm respectful. I'm honest with everybody. Sometimes it gets me in trouble, sometimes it doesn't, but I'll always speak my mind.”

“There's no loyalty in football and you take it with a pinch of salt.”

“Back in the day you used to have a fight. You win, you lose, you get up and go home, dust yourself down. Social media made it so that if you lose a fight it is on camera, you are embarrassed and you are forced to react.”

“I work harder than 90% of people.”

“My dad was well known on the streets, shall we say, and he had a different lifestyle, which could spill into the home setting. Being exposed to that at a young age was difficult.”

“You can't be an athlete and doubt yourself.”

“We do not stand for racism on the pitch, in society or anywhere else it rears its ugly head.”

“Actually, I used to think that it was normal to feel bad, like, Doesn't everybody feel like this? It was only when my drinking really got out of control that people went, 'Troy, you need to see somebody.'”

“You don't appreciate the level of the Premier League until you are there.”

“We're all humans - people make mistakes.”

“When I got to jail, it was a blessing in disguise because it made me reevaluate and check who I am as a person.”

“When the world's moving towards being the most inclusive it's ever been, it's unthinkable that certain basic aspects of life are still so unfair for the black community.”

“Things happen in football and you have to be man enough that things come and go.”

“During therapy I have realised that my work ethic comes from my mum, Emma. She used to work two or three jobs at a time to keep food on the table in our council flat in Birmingham. She taught me to stay disciplined, to go to Sunday school, all those things.”

“I'm really a nice guy, aren't I? Not many people know that.”

“The hardest thing for anyone is to admit you have a problem and then to act on it.”

“My mum had me when she was just 18 and she worked three jobs, including bar tending, to put food on the table and she also went to night college. She worked really hard for us and I kept myself busy with football.”

“Some of my friends were gang-affiliated or gang-related, but that was just the way things were. I was lucky because football kept me busy and away from that bad path, to an extent.”

“Part of my job leading the line for Watford is to occupy centre-halves - by that I mean those battles with Huth, say, to try to win headers when the ball is played forward. But I also look to bring centre-halves out of position to the flanks and make space for my team-mates in the middle.”

“My cousin Joe was just the coolest kid and I wanted to be like him. He had girls, could do whatever he wanted and he was a bricklayer, so I decided to do that.”