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Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Leeds have successful financial services sectors. There are good universities there which provide great opportunities for local technological innovation. And there are strong multinational and family businesses.
Really, the club is like a big family. The locker-room spirit is also similar to what I had experienced at Liverpool, but I really like it here at Juventus, because it's not just a set of champions. The sense of a team, the group, is strongly felt.
Now and again, you may be picking a pass or two in behind, making something happen, but when we're attacking - especially at Liverpool - I'm focusing on protection, being disciplined, being careful, worrying about counter-attacks, things like that.
The Premier League is a very strong league. Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal, and Liverpool all have a high quality. But those who know me also know that I always want to win titles. And I think that Manchester United are a club which can win titles.
When I left Liverpool, my aim was to get into the top six, and I was looking for a team that could get involved at that level. West Ham were brilliant at the time. They'd signed a lot of players, had a lot of money. But they've had problems since then.
I knew about boxing, as my dad could fight. He had a successful security firm in Liverpool, and I'd see him come back from a jog before shadow boxing in the back yard. I'd watch and replicate what he was doing, as kids do. It's funny how things turn out.
There are different pressures when you come to a club like Liverpool. You have to perform well each week, or people start to question you, and I discovered that as soon as I got here. It was a difficult time, but I hope I got stronger from coping with it.
Christ, he was paranoid about criticism. I used to say: why doesn't he worry about the team and forget what people are saying? He got Phil Thompson, who was a kid coming through when I was a Liverpool player, to have a go at me. So now I don't talk to him.
I mean, I was born the day war broke out, but I don't remember all the bombs though they did actually break up Liverpool, you know. I remember when I was a little older, there was big gaps in all the streets where houses used to be. We used to play over them.
No money in this world could convince me to play for Liverpool. That's not a lack of respect for Liverpool supporters or the football club. It's respect for the Everton supporters. You just can't do that. It goes against everything that I stand for. No chance.
A lot of my family follow Liverpool, including my dad Tero and my uncle. In Finland I would say Liverpool is the biggest team, it started in the 1980s with the games on the TV. And then obviously they have had two Finland legends in Jari Litmanen and Sami Hyypia.
I suppose people lost interest in me when I left Liverpool; but it wasn't me who left, it was other people who left me. If people had continued to follow me, they would have seen my two good seasons in Turkey which caught the attention of Besiktas and Galatasaray.
I think you've seen the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea, Man City - the top clubs - all now tapping into the women's market and developing that side of the club. It's great for women's football, and I look at how far we've come, and it's great to have teams like this.
My granddad used to mind me at weekends, and if the game was on, and you wanted to get across the room, you had to crawl under the TV. So I've always been a Liverpool fan, and meeting Steven Gerrard was massive for me. He knew who I was before we'd even said hello!
My family is from Liverpool, so I have some of those vowel sounds, I've got the slack tone of someone from Birmingham, and then I was raised in Bedford, which is just north of London. So my accent, if it's possible, makes even less sense to a Brit than to an American.
When I'm out and about or walking my dogs, United fans are coming up to me saying, 'We'd rather City win the league than Liverpool.' It's strange to hear, but I can assure you the United players aren't going to leave a red carpet and say, 'Go on, City, score past us.'
For me, I can't see Liverpool without him because he's just been there since I was a kid. I had him on the back of my shirt. He's always been on the team every time I've watched Liverpool. It's going to be really weird next season, a Steven Gerrard-less Liverpool side.
I admire Arsenal and the philosophy that the young players have. Liverpool, with their Spanish players, they also have an incredible squad. And Manchester United and Chelsea are teams that are very big, like Real Madrid and Barcelona, with money and incredible players.
I first realised I was good at football when I started getting scouted by United, Liverpool, Everton; clubs like that had a lot of interest at an early age, and you kind of know then you're on the right path. I was about six years old and had to sign a contract at nine.
Before signing with Liverpool, I talked to Roberto Firmino about what the club is like and what the city is like. He spoke well of the club and the city and other people who have already visited the city. The information only gave me more motivation to come to Liverpool.
Some accents people - internationally - can't understand, also they come with baggage. London means a certain thing, Liverpool means a certain thing. Whereas with Welsh, he can be a middle-class man with working-class roots and still have an accent and it not be an issue.
At Brondby, we had Daniel Agger, who came up from the youth. He had two years in the team, and then we sold him to Liverpool for nearly £7 million, which is a lot of money in Denmark. As a manager, that gives you even greater satisfaction that winning something as a player.
A. L. Vijay asked if I could dance, and I just said yes. I didn't tell him the only dancing I had done was on nights out in Liverpool. He said he would arrange workshops and help me with the scripts and the language. He liked the fact that I was English but had an Indian look.
They're great memories, not just as a footballer but as a person growing up - it sounds daft, but to come away from Liverpool to play the first-team football I needed. It's a fantastic place, a huge football club and they helped me a lot. I'm grateful for coming through there.
I suppose when people are criticising you and saying that you are not really worthy of going to such a club as Liverpool, it gives you a little bit more drive and more desire to prove them wrong. And that can only help you in the long run: make you a little bit tougher mentally.
Many great teams have players who have come through the youth system or have been at the club for a long time as their captains. I'm thinking of Steven Gerrard at Liverpool, John Terry at Chelsea, Raul at Real Madrid, as well as Puyol at Barcelona and Gary Neville at Man United.
I would say I am more comfortable in the centre of midfield. But when you are at a big club like Liverpool, you maybe get played in positions with which you might not be so familiar. But you have got to learn the different roles, because it gives you a better opportunity to play.
I was at a local club, Penketh United, and Mike Glennie, a Manchester United scout, came to watch me. He spoke to my grandad and offered me trials, but there was also interest from Liverpool, and I had to pick - I was only young, but obviously my heart was with United at the time.
I was sold by Middlesbrough to Liverpool for a record fee between two English clubs and then won European Cups at Anfield, but I couldn't have been prepared for Rangers. I was a fan as a kid and attended a lot of European nights at Ibrox. I knew the club were big. But not how big.
Leaving Liverpool was the toughest decision I had to make in football because I was in an exemplary club, a proper football club, with a lovely and sharing stadium that meant a lot of things to me. The fans are the best in the world, no doubt about that, and I was comfortable there.
I've done my coaching badges, I've got my Pro Licence, but I enjoy what I'm doing now. I'm also the elite performance director of the Welsh FA. The main thing for me was always Liverpool Football Club and my country, Wales - and I'm lucky enough to still be involved with both of them.
Gothenburg is the Baltimore or Liverpool or Marseille of Sweden - plagued by the death of wharfs and other industries, and with complex segregation of the populace from southern Europe, which once brought in a labor force that suddenly found itself living in remote projects without jobs.
Liverpool have always shown a great warmth to me, so when they came to me with a proposal, I did not need to think twice to renew the contract. I have always been looked after very well by this football club, and I am very happy at this football club, so I didn't even have to think about it.
I remember my last game for Newcastle in the pre-season, when their fans were singing that they wanted me to stay, but when the opportunity came to play for a great club like Liverpool with such a great history, I had to take it. I hope they understand why I made that choice to go to Liverpool.
I have always wanted to fight no matter what position I am in, and whether that is Liverpool or England, I need to do more, and I need to do better because you have younger players, or players get signed for the club who push you and want to take your place, and you have to be better than them.
Two of the first plays I saw after I arrived in Britain were 'King Lear' in Liverpool, and 'Antony and Cleopatra' at Stratford. One was produced with hardly a backdrop and the other with gigantic scene changes. I was impressed by what connected the two: the words and their life beyond the stage.
When I left Ajax in 1999, I travelled to Liverpool and spoke to Houllier. I was shown around Anfield and also met with the chairman and a couple of the players. I thought about it, but when Juventus came to the table, I came to the conclusion that it would be a bigger challenge to play in Italy.
In Brazil, the one who wears 10 constructs the attacks. That is what I will try to do here. The number I have at Liverpool does not give me any added pressure. The pressure I have is to play well and do my best for the team. I know that I am representing a huge club, and I want to enjoy my football.
Bayern is a big club and a big brand, but on a daily basis, it's a family club. You get to know the physios, the kit man, the chefs. It's also a club that's very close to the supporters. That proximity to the fans makes it special. That was surprising. In Liverpool and Madrid, there's more distance.
People remember the treble in 1999 as if we only had to turn up to collect three trophies. But on that cup run, we were 1-0 down against Liverpool going into injury time, and we turned it around to win 2-1. And everyone remembers the Champions League final in Barcelona, where the same thing happened.
My first loan spell I was 18. I went to Crewe, and I felt I'd scored all these goals for Liverpool's youth teams and I'd go to League One and it would be the same. I quickly found out that it wasn't. It took me to come back, captain the U23 side for a year and a half to really get my confidence back.
Real Madrid is like Manchester United or Liverpool or Bayern Munich. There is so much history, and you need to play and win against that history. It's difficult to play against them because you fight against everything - the history, the players - but because of that, the motivation is always so high.
There were players who could leave the result at Anfield, but me? No chance. I got involved in the running of two restaurants in Liverpool to take my mind off football but, before the opening night of each one, I'd played badly. It meant I couldn't enjoy the party. It felt like I had to punish myself.
If not the biggest, the Premier League is one of the biggest leagues in the world. It's very competitive, and I find that exciting. I like challenges. I came here because it will be a great challenge for me at a very high level of football and be among these great players in a great team like Liverpool.
When I was selected as a Labour council candidate in 2009, people publicly challenged how I could possibly represent anyone from the Bengali community because of my faith and since my selection and election as the member of parliament for Liverpool, Wavertree, I have received a torrent of anti-Semitic abuse.
Room 40 knew a U-boat was heading south to Liverpool - knew the boat's history; knew that it was now somewhere in the North Atlantic under orders to sink troop transports and any other British vessel it encountered; and knew as well that the submarine was armed with enough shells and torpedoes to sink a dozen ships.
One of the reasons I chose to come to Liverpool was because of the mentality of the club. It's a working club and a working city. I don't know why, but I feel like one of the people here. They recognise me and wish me luck, but in Spain, they surround you and you can't do anything. I think they're happy with me here.
Manchester United and Liverpool have been bought with huge leverage, and we've got Roman Abramovich at Chelsea who can turn his loans into shares. It is really important for the Premier League to ask itself: if a club is being bought on such a mountain of debt, isn't that a possible recipe for disaster for the future?
My family was going back to England to visit my mother's grandmother, who was very ill. We went up to Liverpool and I met my great-aunt, who was just a force of nature. She was an elocution teacher and a huge enthusiast for theater and the classics. I took her amateur acting class, and she was really impressed with me.
I have said that if I leave Bayern I will go abroad. Then came this interesting offer from Liverpool. I took the loan offer seriously and discussed it with my family and girlfriend because I just want to play. But Bayern gave me the impression that they see a future for me. And therefore a change was not an issue anymore.