Pat Nevin exclusive: Jose Mourinho looks 10 years younger and won’t turn down the chance to make Real Madrid winners again if Florentino Perez makes the call

Everton and Chelsea hero Pat Nevin has called on Manchester United to stick with Michael Carrick in an exclusive interview with NewBettingSites.

Speaking ahead of Arsenal vs Chelsea in the Carabao Cup, the Scot also paid tribute to the talent and impact Declan Rice has made for Mikel Arteta since his big money move from West Ham.

The former winger also called on Raheem Sterling to rediscover his love for the game and suggested Wrexham could be a thrilling story to reignite his passion if he wished to get involved in their pursuit of the Premier League.

Read the full interview below.

Q: Which clubs will be happiest with the Champions League draw?

I think there are three teams that will be a bit disappointed.

Firstly, Monaco and PSG. You don’t want to play against a team from your own country at this stage of the competition. It’s not what the Champions League should be about but that’s the way the draws work now.

I think Benfica will also be a bit gutted because they thought they’d done their job with an absolutely brilliant piece of work against Real Madrid. Jose Mourinho was genius. That was one of the best games we’ve seen in the Champions League for years. Everybody saw what happened. You add in Mourinho and his history with Real Madrid into the mix and it’s just fantastic.

Then what happens? They draw Real Madrid again. It’s hard to do Real Madrid twice like that, even if Real are having a tough time at the moment, so I feel bad for Benfica.

I think Newcastle should be absolutely delighted to get Qarabag. It’s not exactly a walk over. They’ve got some decent players. They are hard to play over there in Baku but that’s the point, the first leg is over there. That makes a gigantic difference.

You’d think Inter Milan might be happy with Bodo/Glimt but you’ve got to take your crampons and play them on a plastic pitch. Footballers aren’t allowed to complain about these things but it’s an absolutely horrific surface to play on as a pro playing at pace. It’s a totally different game and the advantage it gives you is extraordinary.

Q: As good of a draw as it is for Newcastle in Europe, could that trip to play Qarabag away be the last thing they need given how tired they’re looking?

It’s a monster of a trip for Newcastle. I’ve done most of these trips. I’ve been to Tbilisi in Georgia and I used to think that’s a long way to go because you’re almost thinking the next stop after Tbilisi is Beijing. It’s a long old way for people to go if you get out a map and look at it. Baku is even further, I have been there for the Europa League final between Chelsea and Arsenal.

You’re exhausted from the game. You have to fly back overnight. The one thing Newcastle will have in their favour is that it’s a 5:30pm kick off, and that’s a real help,

I think Eddie will put everything he can possibly put into that Champions League run now. His players have looked knackered at the end of games, leggy, beginning to pick up injuries, and the midfield are getting overrun a bit now and again. But they are giving everything, and they’re having to give everything even when they’re not well enough rested.

It’s hard and it’s going to be really hard for them to keep going. But they’re still in the Champions League, they’re still in the competition, and that’s great.

Q: Will Benfica’s playoff tie with Real Madrid be something of a job interview for Jose Mourinho to be offered a second chance at the Bernabeu?

If Real Madrid needed to interview Jose Mourinho then something is wrong. We know what he’s all about. They’ve had first-hand experience of having him as their manager.

It’s not uncommon for a club to get fed up with a manager and then go and hire in a completely different direction.

They’d had managers who had big personalities, men of the world, and they went and got the next guy, Xabi Alonso, who was this young rookie compared to Carlo Ancelotti. They'd almost be going back to that ‘gnarled older wiser manager route’ again if they went for Mourinho. So in short it wouldn’t surprise me.

It would be as colourful as ever with Jose but I think if you told Jose that Benfica’s tie with Real Madrid was a job interview, he’d feel that was beneath him because let’s be honest, Real are not at their best at the moment, However we’ve seen this before, haven’t we? It’s Real Madrid. In three months’ time they could be Champions League winners again. That’s just the way it is with them, that’s the way they roll.

Q: Should United be trying to beat Real Madrid to Mourinho’s signature?

I think appointing Michael Carrick is a great decision. I really do. It’s not just Carrick though, it’s his backroom team.

I’ve been in the position before of having to choose a manager, and I felt that I wasn’t only choosing a manager, I was also choosing the coaches, the assistant, the other ones beside him. That’s at least three that need to be very good if you can get them and they need to work together as a unit.

Everybody looks at the front guy, Michael Carrick, and that's fine but I'm looking at the unit that he’s got in there with him and I'm thinking, damn that's good. I thought that from the moment they put Steve Holland in behind him. Honestly, within the game, most just think wow.

Steve Clarke used to be the one where everybody in the game knew if you’ve got Clarkie in, well done. Mourinho came in and made Clarkie his assistant at Chelsea. Kenny Dalglish went back into Liverpool and brought in Clarkie. Everybody was taking him on because of what he’d done so well and Holland’s the same.

Looking at the team they’ve put around Carrick I was thinking that’s a good call. Stick with it. If it goes well, even if it only goes fairly well and not brilliantly in the short term, I think they’d do well to stick with it.

Q: Could Jose Mourinho do for Real Madrid what Martin O’Neill has done for Celtic this season?

You wouldn't be shocked if Jose Mourinho went back to Real Madrid and made them winners again but here's the thing, in that Benfica game, the camera was on Jose to give him more close ups than the goalscorers, and something looked totally different about him to me.

It was really weird. I was thinking to myself, is this a current picture of Jose? He looks 10 years younger. He looked absolutely brilliant. He looks back on the ball, looking sharp. He looked like himself again.

I'll be honest, for a wee while he had started to sound like a caricature of himself. That's not unusual for big characters because they use their character to become the dominant force in a dressing room and the danger is always there that you get lost in a cycle with it.

It doesn’t look like a caricature with Jose now. It looks to me like he’s a manager again with serious intent. I think there’s a bit of him that is thinking, remember those days back at Porto? Remember what it was like to be fighting as the underdog, working your way to the top from below? I think he’s got his mojo back, and that’s fantastic to see.

The Benfica job is probably good for him but nobody turns down Real Madrid. Nobody. That's just the way it is. So if they did come in for him again, I kind of hope for the Benfica fans, I hope generally even for Jose, that if it comes, then it comes at the end of the season and he’s given certain guarantees.

If you’d asked me a year ago, I’d say I’d be shocked at Jose going back into a job like Real Madrid because it seemed that his time at the very, very, very, very top might have passed. Now I’m looking at him and thinking maybe not, and it would make me smile to see him there again.

Let’s be honest, it would make most of us smile, wouldn’t it? It’d be great to see him do it all again for them, just for the drama.

Q: Could Luis Enrique be available for one of the Manchester clubs this summer if his PSG project is winding down a bit?

Could Luis Enrique be on his way to the Premier League in the summer? There might be some temptation to do that but PSG are the current champions and remember where they finished in the league phase last season. They didn’t make the top eight then either.

If he can find a way to make them champions again, would that shock any of us, really? PSG used to be this team of Galacticos and to be honest I found them tiresome. I just didn’t like them. I deeply love the team Luis Enrique has built and I think loves being there too, and he loves the style he has them playing, and of course the success.

That's a hard thing to walk away from, really hard, but he probably would consider it if a big English club came in for him. He would however probably be given less leeway than he enjoys in Paris, so it’s not going to be Liverpool. It’s not going to be Chelea. It’s not going to be Arsenal. So you’re going to be talking about United and that’s it, unless Pep Guardiola is moving on.

If Luis Enrique is interested in Manchester United then I think you make that decision at the end of the season and see how Michael Carrick and his team do before making the call. That’s exactly what you do. Keep it boiling away. Keep your options open. Where is the downside in that?

If it was up to me at United, I’d be thinking that I hope this Carrick works because Manchester United actually look like Manchester United at the moment, and United fans know what I mean when I say that.

Q: Who will Chelsea want to face in the round of 16?

I think Chelsea have got this far, making it into the round of 16. Anything further than that would be a bonus. I honestly believe that. That’s where Chelsea are up to in their progression as a team. I know they are world champions at the moment but this team has to grow, it has to mature, and you almost just want them to go out there and enjoy it.

They would love to take on Barcelona because we know Chelsea have absolutely battered Barcelona already this season.

I was at that match and they were rank. You were expecting a top quality side and at the end of the match you were left thinking, is that it? It was a real moment to make you realise that yes English football is actually very good.

The Premier League is a lot better. There aren’t that many weaknesses. The depth of the squad is incredible with so many sides.

In the end, Chelsea can have a go at the shooting gallery now. It’s not so much about a preference, it’s just whoever they get. Line them up. We’ll see how we go. You just wouldn’t want them to end up getting near Bayern Munich. When we saw them up against Chelsea in September it looked like men against boys.

I’d love to see Chelsea vs Liverpool again in the Champions League for all those memories and all those great games. I think that would be exciting but you might have to wait until nearer the final for that sort of match up.

Q: Who do you think will end up in the last four of the Champions League, and who are your favourites to go on and win it?

I didn't want Bayern Munich to meet up with Arsenal before the final but I think that's going to happen. So one of those two is going to be in the last four.

I think PSG will get there. Liverpool are outsiders but I’ve just got a feeling. They’re not pulling up any trees in the Premier League but they’re improving at just the right time, and you look at Florian Wirtz and that big number seven shirt doesn’t look so big anymore on his back. He looks awesome.

It’s a shame that people keep on comparing him to Mohamed Salah. It’s completely unfair because Salah is one of the great players of the modern age. His goalscoring is simply bizarre. I would compare Wirtz with Kevin De Bruyne, another brilliant player. They’re not exactly the same but he’s got that vision, that ability to see things.

Wirtz and Ekitike are playing incredibly well together and you’d think with Liverpool’s knowledge of the Champions League and all that stuff I wouldn’t be surprised to see them back in the semi-finals.

Then you’re left with one more team between Real Madrid and Manchester City and if one of them can put together a run they’d be tough to stop.

So I’m saying Bayern or Arsenal, and I’ll plump for Arsenal, plus PSG and Liverpool and then Real Madrid or Manchester City, and I think City edge it.

Who will win it? I would love to see an Arsenal vs PSG final because that would be a great clash of styles. They’re very different teams and you’d love to see that match as a pure football fan. PSG are probably my favourite team to watch, and I love watching them, but Arsenal, with what they’ve built, the intelligence behind it all, the physicality they can bring and their set pieces, they’re the two best teams in world football. Who is my pick to win it? Arsenal.

It would be a final pitting my two favourite footballers at the moment against each other, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Declan Rice. I even remember saying to a lot of people when Kvaratskhelia broke through that Arsenal should buy this guy, and then he went to Napoli and you think it’s going to be too late, but they still could have got him. He is absolutely the one that got away because Kvaratskhelia has the perfect style for British football.

Q: If Arsenal were to target one glamour signing this summer, is Khvicha Kvaratskhelia still the one for you?

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia to Arsenal? I don’t think there’s a space for him now.

There will be a lot of movement as always in the market and it’s interesting to think about because everybody wants these creative players but Arsenal have got Eze and they don’t play him. Eze should be starting games at one of the very top clubs and playing every single week so it makes you wonder.

Is that where Arsenal need to strengthen? Not necessarily. I think everyone agrees there’s probably still one area that needs strengthening and that’s at centre-forward, but then they’ve got Kai Havertz coming back.

So what do Arsenal need to do? Not much really. If you’re signing Kvaratskhelia it’s to play him off the left, sometimes down the right, maybe behind the striker as a No. 10 and Arsenal have already spent a lot of money there.

They’ve done it over four, five, six years to build up their squad and it’s given them real depth, and they’ve got a great balance to their team. They’ve got backups all over the place. I mean, their B team beat Inter Milan at the San Siro. They were brilliant. They wiped the floor with them.

Q: Was Liam Rosenior’s willingness to make big early changes against West Ham a sign that he has the ruthlessness to make decisive decisions like Jose Mourinho once did as Chelsea manager?

I didn't see it that way. I was at the game and it was a bad decision to pick the team that started the game. It just didn't work, and that's not just me. All the Chelsea fans I was talking to before the game were unhappy at the team. The destruction of the left-hand side was terrible. It was a mess.

Liam did the right thing to change at half time, but I can’t say it was genius or the kind of thing Jose Mourinho would have done because he made exactly the changes I suggested on air that he should make, so I’d be calling myself a genius and I can’t do that.

He did the right thing to make those changes but there was nothing big or complicated about it. But sometimes you don't need to be big and complicated. Look at Michael Carrick at Manchester United. Sometimes you just need to do the right thing, make the obvious changes, and you can see the players feel better about it.

It's hard to know. Did Liam choose the players to rest? I don't know. He may well have done. He will have been part of the decision at least but there’s something else going on at Chelsea that Maresca wasn’t delighted with, so why would the Chelsea upper echelons change that? So that's always there in the back of your mind. I wouldn’t want to be unfair on Liam.

But there were too many changes to take on a West Ham team that is massively improving but you know, if you're going to learn, you've got to learn quickly in the Premier League. But he's had the best start that you could possibly have imagined.

When will we know how good Liam Rosenior is? I said right at the start when Liam came in. Have a look at the run. He could have one of the best starts a Chelsea manager has ever had and it’s been great. The defeat against Arsenal was understandable. Against Napoli they were superb.

Granted, it wasn't a full Napoli side and by the way they got lucky because again, watching that game two-one down, Chelsea were the better team, but they should be the better team. They cost a fortune more than that Napoli team, but the home side made and missed a lot of chances.

So we come to West Ham and Chelsea really ought to be winning that game as well, even though West Ham have improved, and look at what’s coming up. They’ve got Wolves next. Then Leeds. Hull City in the FA Cup. Burnley at home.

This is after the Arsenal game in the Carabao Cup which again is a shot to nothing as it were. So Liam will have come up with the most brilliant stats at the end of this run and everyone will say, my god, he’s the answer!

Well, have a look at March and April. That’s when we’ll find out. It is good management from the upper management. They’ve put Liam in at the right time. If you’re going to bring a new manager in, you actually have to consider the timing.

Look at Glasgow Celtic. They stuck a new manager in earlier this season and gave him all the hardest games of the season in a row right at the start. It was a shambles. Chelsea could not have picked a better time, so for the moment it’s a case of steady as she goes.

In March and April, it’s Arsenal, Aston Villa, Newcastle, Man City, Man United and the Champions League. That's when you think about it.

Liam is doing well though, he’s just not doing anything particularly different from Enzo Maresca. Tactically it’s very, very similar. However, he’s given them a bit more energy, and any manager who can bring back some sense of Chelsea being that mad, unpredictable team that one minute are getting booed off the park and the next putting in one of the best halves of football you’ll ever see, I’m with them. I love that. I’m all about being entertained and being excited. If Liam Rosenior has brought anything to Chelsea, it’s that, and I love that.

Q: Can Joao Pedro finally be the player to end Chelsea’s striker curse?

I love Joao Pedro as a Chelsea player. It takes a wee while sometimes to fit into a new style, a new system and new personnel, and remember, you've got to learn everybody's strengths and weaknesses, where people like you to play and where to move so they can find you. There's a lot to do in the final third and sometimes people walk into it, especially if you're a striker and you're just getting lots of chances. Chances weren't really coming like that at the start for Joao Pedro.

Certainly the talent's there. He's absolutely talented enough. But is he someone who's going to feel like many, many others have before them? Chelsea fans are right to think there's a curse around their strikers, but I think he's going to be OK. I think it's harder for Liam Delap.

The game against West Ham was a classic. Delap worked his socks off. He chased everything. We were doing a commentary and he hardly got mentioned. Joao Pedro has got a decent work rate but Liam’s got more. Delap’s got a far bigger, better work rate than anyone but that doesn’t count, it's the direct effect you have that impresses the fans.

Oddly enough, Delap and Joao Pedro work well together because you’ve got Delap’s running and movement gives Joao Pedro a bit of space. Everyone will say get Joao Pedro up front but actually maybe. Maybe get him off the front player. Joao Pedro for me is a 10 but he’s also a striker. He’s both, and I think he looks slightly more comfortable playing as the 10.

Who else do we know like that in world football? Who’s the best at playing that role in world football? It’s Harry Kane by miles. He’s unbelievable at it and Joao Pedro has got a lot of the same attributes.

We don’t see Harry Kane as a 10 very often. We used to see it a bit with Spurs when Son went up front and Kane is so good at setting it up for other forwards when he drops back a little deeper.

Remember when Harry was younger. He had to grow into it. He sometimes looked a little bit odd the way he moved but that’s often the case for someone who can play those two positions at the very highest level of world football.

There’s a few but not many who can play both roles well and Joao Pedro is still so young but Harry Kane is who he reminds me of and I can’t give a striker any greater praise than that because I’ve stuck by it and I’ll say it again. Harry Kane is that good that in reality is he more or less brilliant than Erling Haaland?

Haaland’s amazing. His goal scoring numbers are great. But you put Harry Kane all the way through his career in as dominant a team as Manchester City and just think how many Harry would have scored every single week. He’d be getting dozens of chances and he’s the best pure finisher in the world. But yes, who does Joao Pedro remind me of? Probably the closest player is Harry Kane.

Q: Manchester City were linked with Harry Kane the summer before they signed Erling Haaland so could they have had even more success if they’d signed Kane?

The thing about Harry Kane is that he’s at an age where you're thinking, are you going to slow down a bit soon? But I've been to see Bayern a few times in the last couple of years and he is now a giant of a player.

He was immediately the best player and the most important player at Bayern Munich, and that's a big club. Everything revolves around him, even though they have other fabulous players like Michael Olisse.

Honestly, I can't see him coming back to the Premier League. Bayern is perfect for Harry. Oddly enough, I still think he is underrated in England. When you talk about him being among the great players in the world, Harry always seems to get mentioned as someone who is a wee bit behind but have a look at the guy’s numbers. He's unbelievable.

I think Harry at the moment is up there with the best of the best and I just don't see why he should leave Bayern.

Q: How would Chelsea go about replacing Cole Palmer if he really did want to move back up to Manchester?

It would be a great disappointment to Chelsea fans if Cole Palmer were to leave but watching the game against West Ham, Chelsea were brilliant in the second half, and I kept on thinking Cole’s going to be the one that’s going to do it. When they got to 2-1 you just thought they’re going to do it because it felt right, it felt good and they were playing well. But it wasn’t Cole. It was Cucurella who had an unbelievable game. It was other players who were playing fantastically well. Cole did OK but he wasn’t at his usual genius level.

Chelsea fans will be devastated if he did leave but he’s got to get back to being the Cole we know again. He’s got to get himself fit. It’s not his fault he got injured. If he has a full pre-season behind him, you know what he’s capable of doing. But there was a moment when he had a chance and he didn’t take it and you begin to think, he’d have scored that before and he didn’t this time. Maybe you start reading too much into it. He’s homesick or this or that. I don't know because it all sounds like rumours to me but I will say that there were rumours at Manchester City too and he ended up at Chelsea after that.

I’d been boring the pants off everybody when he broke through at City. He was the one I was seeing as a kid coming through thinking that this is the new Kevin De Bruyne and I thought he’d be one to watch but then the rumours started there. It was not too dissimilar to the rumours we’re hearing now, that it had nothing to do with football. It was everything to do with something personal. So you never know.

But isn’t this the Chelsea model? Buy young. Spend a good amount of money, though they didn’t spend that much money on Cole, then they’ll make a gigantic profit on him. Money is always important in football but it’s clearly very important to Chelsea, and that’s the way their model works. I suspect Cole Palmer isn’t even in the top 20 players at the club that they want to sell but every player has a price.

Q: Would Chelsea have to look at someone like Eberchi Eze, Morgan Rogers or Khvicha Kvaratskhelia to replace a player of his influence?

All those names! Can I say all of the above? It's fine. As somebody who loves watching players of that standard, you have to remember Chelsea want youth. It’s always about youth. They’ll look at Estevao before they look to the transfer market for a like-for-like replacement.

Kvaratskhelia is about 24, so still young-ish but I think they’ll look younger than that. Of all those players, I’d be delighted if it was Eze. I would love that. It’d be fantastic. He would be more of a core player to the Chelsea team then he’ll ever be at Arsenal.

Q: Based on the age profile Chelsea look for, if it were to be one of those names, would Morgan Rogers be the front-runner?

Morgan Rogers to replace Cole Palmer at Chelsea? Wow. I love him as a player. But there’s a lot of players like that. You like them but a lot of other clubs would like them as well.

I personally hope that Aston Villa keep him. He just feels right at Villa. They had a difficult match against Brentford but to get up as high as they’ve got, to be there with Man City and really pushing Arsenal in the title race, I think they’ve been brilliant.

The idea of always talking their players away, I feel really discomforted about doing that. He doesn’t need to leave Villa. He’s playing really well. He’s actually getting England opportunities because he’s playing every week there.

Remember what can happen to you if you leave a club where it suits you. Look at Eze. He was the main man at Crystal Palace. He’s fantastic. He’s brilliant. You get the ball, you give it to Eze. He goes and moves to Arsenal and he’s hardly getting a sniff and that’s really sad.

I wouldn't want that to happen to Morgan. I think he’s a player that should stay a couple of years more at the very least.

Q: What next for Alejandro Garnacho after his display against West Ham?

I was at the West Ham game and only about the 252nd person came up to me and said the same phrase, something I said a long time ago. Why are you getting rid of Noni Madueke and bringing in Alejandro Garnacho?

But I felt sorry for Garnacho. They had to take him off. It was actually a wee bit sad. The last time that happened at Stamford Bridge it was Raheem Sterling. I’m talking seriously now, as a footballer when that can happen, if it takes a turn and the confidence goes completely, it can become very ugly.

Garnacho needs to be very carefully managed but remember he scored two goals against Arsenal a couple of weeks ago. There have been moments where it’s been great but he’s not won those Chelsea fans over yet.

You’re a footballer. A first team footballer. You have to front everything. You need to take it. If it’s not going well for you, you can moan and say I’m getting the respect and all that sort of stuff but you’ve got to shut up and take it sadly. You’re getting paid a lot of money. Do your job. If you do it well, you’ll be loved more than anyone else. If you don’t, and if you’re not seen to be putting in the effort and doing it the right way, you’ll get more abuse than anyone else.

In the modern world people do worry about and understand your mental wellbeing but most players know it’s part of it. It’s in the job description. It’s part of the gig.

Q: Is Tyrique George’s move to Everton another step closer to the Chelsea first team or his first step toward a permanent move elsewhere?

My preference for Tyrique George would be a permanent move to Everton and it’s a difficult one for me, having feelings for both clubs.

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall going to Everton was brilliant. Absolutely fantastic. He's grown, he's not necessarily got any better, he's just been given a chance and allowed to become a core player for the team.

For all the qualities Tyrique has got, Chelsea football club are always going to buy somebody else to play ahead of you. It's just the way it is.

It’s a completely different position but Chelsea got rid of Marc Guehi. He needed to go somewhere else to develop. Going on loan helps but you know it’s part-time. They know that the club’s planning for when you’re not there.

Tyrique under Moyesy is interesting because he will improve him.

Remember the Chelsea players that came through like Dominic Solanke, they bring them through and it's hard for them to stay in the side. Tammy Abraham was exactly the same. It's not right for them. Dominic Solanke and Hudso Odoi were the same and that was just one cohort. I think the Chelsea model that’s produced Tyrique George has delivered a player that’s cost them nothing but is going to be sold for a good profit.

Chelsea have not lost anything. They’ve made money. The system works. The academy is doing what it always does, providing top quality Premier League players for other teams and the odd one for themselves. That’s fine. Everybody benefits. I think Everton would benefit as well.

The odd thing is people are talking about this now and both of Everton’s strikers at last have scored so he might have a little bit of difficulty getting through there, but then again the good thing about Tyrique is that although he can play up front, he can play out wide too. He’s a wide attacker though, not a winger. They are different things.

Q: So can Tyrique George offer another point of difference out wide for Everton while Jack Grealish is out of action?

Can Tyrique George offer Everton a little bit of difference? Everton have already got plenty of difference! It's great. You have to look at the quality they’ve already got in the wide areas now. If I was Man City or Liverpool or Chelsea, I’d be looking into signing Iliman Ndiaye. I think he’s a phenomenal player. There’s even a wee bit of Eden Hazard about him.

I think maybe for the first time in his entire managerial career he’s got really good creative options upfront. He’s often only had one or two around but look at it now. He’s got Dewsbury-Hall and Jack when he was fit. The boy Armstrong has been absolutely magnificent and there is Charly Alcaraz.

Grealish is injured and you’re not going to directly replace him. You need bodies in those areas but good bodies and that’s what Tyrique is. I’ve got great hopes that it goes well for him there and it becomes permanent.

Q: Has the Jeremy Jacquet transfer saga left Chelsea’s sporting directors looking a bit silly given the talk that he only had eyes on a move to Chelsea before then completing a deal to join Liverpool at around £30m less than the Blues were said to be ready to pay?

You know you're getting slightly pushed sometimes. I know how it works in the background.

Sometimes people say they’re going to get a player just so it ups the price for somebody else who they know is going to get them anyway so they have to spend £20 million more of their money to make it happen. There's wheels within wheels and there's a lot of politics going on with these sorts of rumours.

You can take it on face value and it always looks like one thing, and it might not be a great look, but is that really what is happening? Chelsea might have actually been playing quite a clever game.

What you should consider is, if Chelsea are making a decision to get a centre-back from the continent, is it going to be the right decision? Axel Disasi cost £39 million. Benoit Badiashile cost them £35 million. Jorrel Hato, a left-back also a left centre-back, cost them £40 million. Wesley Fofana? £70 million.

They've spent an awful lot of money on centre backs and they're not all terrible players, although Disasi was in the bomb squad recently. That's a lot of money to still be thinking, who's our best centre-backs? It’s still probably Levi Colwill and maybe Trevoh Chalobah and they came through the youth system for free. That’s weird.

Unless you watch these targets every week it is hard to be sure. Even having studied them closely that doesn’t tell you what’s going to happen in the Premier League, it really doesn’t, there will be a lot of failures among the successes. The midfielders at Chelsea have both been brilliant but then give me £200 million to spend on two players and maybe I’d pick a good pair, and so would you.

Q: On the whole, is the Chelsea model working?

Cole Palmer’s been great. I’m delighted with Estevao. There have been good decisions. But that central defensive area, I think everybody understands it's not quite sorted yet. It's not on par with the two centre-backs that Arsenal have got. That's an area to sort and you might say in the modern game that doesn't get sorted because players rotate, but in actual fact Arsenal are quite modern, Gabriel and Saliba are damn good and they play almost every game if fit.

Chelsea might get another centre-back in time, they might get him in for £50 million or £60 million and who knows it might even work, but it might not.

Q: Could Chelsea make a move for Harry Maguire or John Stones on a free in the summer to add some experience to their young backline and finally replace Thiago Silva?

Harry Maguire or John Stones to Chelsea on a free? That could work in terms of the team but it won’t happen.

There are other clubs for them that would be better suited. The model at Chelsea is clear and if you went and did that, and you said that’s what we needed to help the young centre-backs, everyone would say the same thing. We were right and you were wrong, we always said you needed more experience .

They’ve taken this hardline approach about youth even as everyone was saying you need a bit of experience in there. So they’re not going to do that and risk it blowing up in their faces.

So is that going to happen? No, it's not going to happen. But you know, with the best will in the world, I love Harry Maguire and I think he could be good at Liverpool, but he could be great for a variety of clubs.

The only thing that stops that move for Harry Maguire is United to Liverpool and that’s a rare thing. It’s not unheard of but they don’t like to do it. But if I’m guessing, I think Micahel Carrick will love to keep Harry Maguire for as long as he can.

So Harry, if I had to choose, I think the club you’ll be playing for next season is probably going to be….Manchester United.

Q: Where could John Stones end up this summer?

John Stones is one of the hardest ones to call at the moment because when he’s fit, the John Stones you can rely on to play 40 games a season as a right-back, a centre-back, or a centre-back in the right back area of a three, or sitting in the middle in the Rodri position, he can do them all, that's a great player to have.

He’s a great player for England to have at the World Cup too but everyone knows there is a but, and that’s the injuries. That is it.

There's nothing a player hates more than to be told he's injury prone or made of glass and it is just sad, it's unfair, hurtful and it's all those other things but that's the only reason why you're not talking about John Stones making a move to the very, very top level clubs. They're wary of the injuries and that's it. It's nothing more than that.

Could you do a job for the likes of Liverpool? Yeah, of course he could. United? Yeah, of course he could.

I was thinking, Everton are going to lose Brathwaite, and he is the one that everyone should be chasing just now. I think he could be the best centre-back England have produced for many, many years.

So Everton are going to lose him eventually, and when you lose him, somebody will need to step in and take his place. Remember you get a lot of money for Brathwaite if you're Everton. I'll be devastated when it happens but that's just the way it is. Maybe John Stones could be the answer to step in then?

Everton have got a good, sound backline at the moment anyway, even without Brathwaite. John Stones back at Everton just kind of works in my world.

Q: If Trent Alexander-Arnold is to return to England, would a return to Liverpool be possible given how it all ended for him?

Liverpool could do with Trent Alexander-Arnold coming back. Their right-hand side is just not sorted. There aren't too many players in that position where you truly know they can do a job for you and do so at the highest level.

But if he did become available, do you think Trent would want to do that? No. I don’t think he would. I think Trent wants to stay at Real Madrid and a lot will depend on one very simple thing. Who is Real Madrid's manager next year? That's what it comes down to.

We all know as players, there's about 14 different things up in the air at a time, most of the time, but you could find that a new manager comes in and you can be brilliant every day and he still won't want you. You can find a different guy who comes in and you're playing every week. You're not a better or a worse player. You are the same player. Trent will need to try and find out who's coming in and, if at all possible, find out if it’s the right manager for him.

Q: Would a move to Liverpool for Eduardo Camavinga allow his overall game to shine through as was the case for Yaya Toure when he left Spain for Manchester City?

Eduardo Camavinga to Liverpool? I’ve seen him in the flesh quite a few times and there have been games where I thought he could be one of the best players in the world, easy. He’s got absolutely everything. He can cruise through matches and run a game. He’s got pure class on the ball. Then I've seen him on another occasion and all I could think was, can you even be bothered?

It's almost like when you know somebody's so good that you end up questioning why they are doing so little in some games? That is often the case when a player is fed up with their manager, you don't feel as if you're getting games in the positions that you should be in because they've moved him around a bit into different positions. That's when you need to get a move to a club to play in the same role every week and become the core of the team. Somewhere that’ll say to him that’s who you are. That’s what you’ll do for us.

Could he get that at Liverpool? Absolutely. It would suit him well. Could it happen? Absolutely no idea but for Liverpool, it makes so much sense. You can see how it could come together. You know what Dominik Szoboszlai can do. You know that Cody Gakpo has real quality. This is before Alexander Isak comes back into the picture.

This is the transition we expected from Jurgen Klopp to Arne Slot. It has happened a year later than we all thought it would but it’s happening now and it’s a bit bumpy but I don’t think Liverpool are falling off the edge of a cliff. I think they’re just going through a transition this season and by next season they’ll be only one area that needs some attention and that’s at centre-back, like almost everybody else in the Premier League.

Virgil van Dijk can’t last forever and they need to get that sorted out. They have already started that in this transfer window obviously. They need to have some cover and figure out which guy is going to come and play next to Virgil for a while. But Camavinga to Liverpool? Absolutely.

Q: Am I right in thinking you’re a bit of an NFL fan?

For a long, long time I was a Giants fan. But the last five or six years I've kind of not been able to follow it because I've been too busy doing our game.

Also I will tell you what stopped me from watching it. I wrote a couple of books and because I was writing, it took me a lot of time. Then I had to go and promote them so sadly I can't be much help with this season’s Super Bowl.

I'm so old school. I'm a Giants fan. If the Giants aren't doing well, I'm not interested.

Q: Would Wrexham be the sort of move to bring the fun back to Raheem Sterling’s football?

Raheem Sterling to Wrexham? It would be brilliant, it would be lovely but I don't care where, Raheem please just go and play football, mate.

Really just go and play some football. You know, it doesn't matter if you're in the Premier League, it really doesn't. The money you've made, I looked at the top 100 rich list of people who paid the most tax in this country this year and Raheem was on there. He was in the top 10 for footballers. He hasn't kicked a ball for a year and a half.

It's a short life. It's a short career. You've made enough money. You've had a great career. Well done. Go on, enjoy this bit. It doesn't matter. It could be Wrexham or anywhere else. I went back up to Kilmarnock at the end of my career and had the happiest year of my football career. The happiest year of my entire career. It was about the joy of it. The money's not important.

Anyone who's getting snobby about playing outside the top fancy teams, forget it man. I know everybody has a thing in this world at the moment where it's all about how you look and whether you're at all the most stylish places, playing for the most stylish teams, but it's all just rubbish.

Trust me, there won't be any more sniping than what you're already getting just now for not playing at all so go and enjoy it. Raheem, you’re a fabulous, fabulous footballer. If it’s Wrexham, brilliant. If it’s Tranmere Rovers, brilliant. Just go out and love it again.

Q: Is Alexandre Pato potentially fronting a takeover of Colchester one of the best stories of the season?

Alexandre Pato to Colchester is an amazing story.

It’s funny when players do different things as life goes on and they have to make a change. We’re always quite amazed by it, aren't we? We shouldn't be. The idea was that footballers must be too thick to do anything else. No, they're absolutely not.

I'll give you a great example as a friend of mine. I played with Norman Whiteside. Many people will remember the name. He was the youngest-ever player to play at the World Cup.

Norman was 26 at the time when he was forced to retire through injury and he was one the best players I've ever seen. I played with him at Everton. He went on to become a podiatrist. I think I could have become a doctor, that smart. From the outside, everyone saw big daft Norman who likes a drink, all that sort of stuff, but it’s absolute nonsense.

It's lovely and I would hope that the help that those who left the game early got was useful. I hope the clubs helped them and the union helped them. You get retrained, you get the chance to get the best out of yourself. So yeah, just good luck. It's a good story. It could be a great story like Wrexham. We do like these narratives. They're fantastic, so the best of luck.

Q: What do you make of Snoop Dogg’s plans to make Swansea City one of the biggest clubs in the world?

I'm afraid that Snoop Dogg is one of the ones where I think actually there's lots to like about him but it's not my genre.

The wonderful thing is that most of my friends when I was playing were musicians and the number of musicians that wanted to be footballers was similar to the amount of footballers that wanted to be musicians.

There are a lot of similarities but I remember one of the things that some of the musicians and artists used to say to me. It was that they’d go and do their art but it’s the same thing every time. Whether it’s a play for an actor or if they’re playing the same songs in a band. You change the tune a wee bit, add something, but you have to play roughly the same songs every night.

You go and play football and every single match is unpredictable and it’s totally not like that for anything else. You get that buzz and that excitement every time. The musicians love it, even if they can’t play they like to be near it, so I’m not surprised that musicians would try and get involved.

Can Swansea City become the biggest club in the world thanks to Snoop Dogg? Well, they wear white like Real Madrid but I think that’s as far as they'll get with that for a while, but good luck to them.

Q: What’s your prediction for how the Scottish Premiership will finish now?

That’s the hardest question of the day. It's extraordinary. I’ve leaned towards all three at different points.

Hearts had a couple of injuries and that got you thinking this is the time where they’re going to falter but they just keep going.

Rangers have come from absolutely nowhere with nothing to lose because the expectations have been so low. Before their draw with Hibs at Easter Road, you almost started to lean towards them.

Celtic have got the Martin O’Neill factor and they’ve brought some new players in and there’s a bit of a buzz about them on a run again.

If you take out the period where they went for Wilfried Nancy and they had that stinking run, had Celtic just kept on with Martin O’Neill, they would probably be about six points ahead in the league right now.

The temptation is to say the Martin O'Neal effect will see Celtic through but there really is only one thing holding them back and that’s the terrible feeling within the club just now between a large section of the fans and the ownership. Without taking a side for a second, that's just not good for players.

I don't think it'll be enough to stop them in the end because during the big moments the Celtic fans will be there. Well, they won't all be there because some of them have been banned but you know, 50-60,000 fans will get behind the team.

It's a long rambling answer to say I think Celtic might sneak it again but it’ll all come down to the last day of the season.

Q: Finally, what do you make of Cristiano Ronaldo going on strike in Saudi Arabia?

When wealthy people, no matter where they are or what they do, lose touch with reality, I then lose interest in them.

If the stories are roughly in tandem with what we hear in the headlines, being paid over £475,000 per day and refusing to play because investment isn’t being made in his club that satisfies his wishes, then the vast pyramid of football below him will not be impressed.

It feels like gross entitlement and shows footballers up in a bad light. He is letting the team down because of his own selfish demands. Some might say that has been the one and only, but constant weakness in his game, during his entire career.