To be honest, I was Mum's boy. Always was, always will be.
When you see young players coming into the squad and pushing you, no matter what age you are, you have to react. You have to worry about yourself and perform as well as you can. If you end up looking around at others, wondering who's performing better, you take your eye off the ball.
Barcelona are my favourite team in Spain, let's put it that way.
When you take a lot of stick you want to ram it down people's throats.
I can't stress the importance of working hard enough, work on all aspects of your game. If you does that and you have the ability, you'll come through.
I have made lots of mistakes on and off the pitch, and you can only learn from them. If I can get that across, then hopefully I am doing something right.
I was always pretty good at school, but a lot of it was memorising, maybe cheating off your mates, stuff that gets you through.
My dad shaped the footballing side of me, and Mum shaped me as a person. I've always been very close to her - we've only ever had one argument, and that was over something stupid when I was 13.
I am a man who likes to play consistently; I always play better when I'm on a run of games.
Of course it is going to be difficult for any player to get in the Chelsea side no matter who they are.
I'm really happy here. I think anyone who knows me well, and the fans too I hope, they know that I love the area, and the bond that I've had with the fans has been fantastic.
I don't want to be a passenger sitting on the bench not doing much, even in my older years.
Nobody expects a footballer to have any kind of an IQ, which is a bit of an unfair stereotype.
I didn't want to be the rebel who was bottom of the class, so I worked hard. They wanted me to stay on for A-Levels, but football came calling - that was my real love.
I think about all my successes and failures, and sometimes the failures stick in your head as much as the wins. But you do move on.
If I lose the ball, I lose it trying to do the right thing. That's the way it is.
Of course, there will be few people who are sympathetic but you don't become a great team overnight, no matter how much money you have at your disposal.
There's that talent thing where I can score goals, and there's also that want and ambition to keep doing it and doing it and doing it. I've seen a lot of players do it for a year and then they rest on their laurels, but I've been very driven throughout my career. Without being the most talented, I think I've tried to make the most of it.
I loved reading Roald Dahl when I was young but I had forgotten a lot about the books. I read the 'BFG' on the iPad the other day and it was so interesting to see his descriptions of clothes and places.
In international football, you need pace and you need your players up top to create things out of nothing and run at people.
