On my mum Marie's side, my nana was from the Republic of Ireland, and my granddad was from the north. Lots of families in Manchester have strong Irish connections, but it never occurred to me to play for anyone other than England.
At United, we never used to change our style much away from home. The aim was always to score goals and dominate the match.
Part of being a Manchester United player under Sir Alex Ferguson, perhaps the most important part of being one of United's attacking players was that when you were in possession, you had to take risks in order to create goal-scoring chances. It was not an option; it was an obligation.
As a striker, as I originally was, and then an attacking midfielder, it has always been my aim in life to embarrass goalkeepers: to dominate them, to force them into mistakes.
In some ways, I admire the principle of a manager who is determined that his team must play their own game.
The best goalkeeper I played with at United was Schmeichel. He was a phenomenon in training, never mind on match days. He just never wanted to concede, and he would do everything to stop you scoring.
Managers live and die by their recruitment.
St James' Park was always, in the course of my career, a great place to play football, for the wildness of the crowd and the no-holds-barred football that both my team, Manchester United, and Newcastle would play.
English clubs should not be pleased to go to places like Barcelona and get away without a thrashing. They should be able to compete. They have the resources.
For any footballer who plays for Real Madrid in the modern era, the prospect of leaving the club must feel like a step down no matter where they go - but it does not have to be like that.
When it came to playing Arsenal over the last eight years of my career at United, we always went into games against them feeling like we would win - and we usually did.
Pirlo is a cool customer who does things in his own time. On the pitch, he just looks so relaxed, no matter what is going on around him. He is one of those greats who looks like he could run a midfield with a glass of red wine in one hand.
If you want a measure of how private a place the dressing room was when I was growing up at Manchester United, consider this: even Sir Alex Ferguson would knock before coming into the dressing room at the Cliff, the old training ground. The dressing room is for the players - and the players only.
I won three FA Cup finals, two League Cup finals, and played in one of United's two Champions League-winning finals. But I lost in a lot of finals, too: the FA Cup in 1995, 2005 and 2007, the League Cup in 2003, and the Champions League in 2009 and 2011.
There are times in the career of every young English footballer when they simply need to take their chance to establish themselves.
At some point, a young player has to grasp the opportunity and make himself undroppable.
I was fortunate to play with so many wonderful footballers and under the greatest manager of all time, but I do believe that a club's ethos, the principles of how it plays, should outlive even the biggest individuals in its history.
The way a top team develops means that once you have won the league title, the natural step is to try to win the Champions League.
I worked with many great assistants to Sir Alex Ferguson over the years. Yet sometimes a manager's second-in-command is more suited to that role than any other. You confide in them - you tell them things that you would not tell the manager - and they are that bridge between the boss and the players.
When I go into management, I want to do so with 100 per cent commitment.
