Georginio Wijnaldum Quotes

Once I reached about 14 or 15, I started to steady myself and get into a midfield role and carried that on until I was 17. Then I dropped into right-back, and I have played there ever since.

When I was at Doncaster Rovers Belles, I used to play up front or as a number 10, but when I joined Chelsea in 2015, I was more a midfielder, and over the last few years, I've moved into the back four.

There has been a great list of players who cut their teeth in Europe.

One is my club, I want to develop those players, and I want to be in the beginning at least, until I have everything ready, I want to spend as much time to develop those kids as possible.

I think it's a natural progression: a lot of centre-backs start wide when they're young and move inside.

The Under-21s was a good experience for me and one I will take into the Euros.

For me, playing through all the youth teams at Borussia Dortmund was a really good experience because I was able to play against talented opponents at a relatively early age.

From my youth team all the way through, I was encouraged to play that way by Keith Hill when I was at Barnsley, and then Roberto Martinez at Everton, through to Gareth Southgate when he was in charge of the England Under-21s.

To be honest, from England Under-16s, through the 17s and 18s, really all the way through my youth career, I played at centre-half. For some reason, when I made my debut at Everton, I just played in central midfield, and it went from there.

A lot of the guys who played in the 1995 final for Ajax had been there since the age of 12 or 13. Patrick Kluivert and Edgar Davids had been there from age seven or eight, so I had a lot of catching up to do.

Luckily for me, Hereford restarted their youth team. I trained a few times with the first team before my first stroke of luck, when the club's youth team coach Pete Beadle, someone who knew me well, became the first-team manager.

I started out as a defender. I played as a full-back, and then I moved into the centre. I played defence right the way through until the Under-18s. Honestly!

Balotelli I have known since I gave him his debut at 17.

When I broke into the Everton side under Roberto Martinez, I was playing in the No. 10 role, and I had never played there before, so I was getting used to that role as a first-team player.

Initially when I was looking to enter football I was looking at clubs in Italy or France or Spain, a mid-table club where I could develop players and eventually sell them.

I learned so much during my time at United. Sharing a dressing room with Paul Scholes, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Ruud van Nistelrooy, and Ryan Giggs at such a young age was an amazing experience. I didn't play as much as I would have liked, but it was a master's degree in development both as a player and a person.

I've played for England Under-21s, in the Under-20 World Cup and I've been part of the play-offs in the Championship. But in terms of helping my career and getting me ready, going to Cheltenham Town was a massive experience.

Under Wenger I became the player that I am today because he's the guy that signed me at 16. I owe him a lot and all the time I spent here he made me play so much even when I was really young. Those are things you owe him back.

If young players are capable of playing 90 minutes every week at European clubs why prevent them from doing that?

If you went and found my draft bio, I wasn't supposed to play left tackle, and I sure as hell wasn't supposed to play it for 12 years.

I didn't see myself playing regularly at right-back for Manchester United or making my England debut in that position.

Our under-19s, under-20s, under-17s teams are all getting into Euro finals, World Cup finals, winning bronze medals. We're winning bronze medals; it's about that final step now. We've got to punish teams. In every game - youth games, senior games - just to push the game further.

When you've got money to spend, it's very easy to buy someone worth £50m rather than say, 'I'm going to play this 20-year-old English player.' It's easier to buy someone when you have the money to do it. But at the same time, if you give somebody an opportunity, you never know. You can only roll the dice and see how they perform.

We should integrate the quality of ex-players at the highest level more in football, especially in the youth sector. That is absolutely crucial for me.

It is down to the manager what he wants to do in the transfer window. Us as players, we just have to focus on each game that comes along and try and do our best.