"We had a lot of time off during the summer break to talk things through and reflect really. As I said my daughter is nearly coming up to two, she’s getting a lot stronger, getting a lot bigger. Touch wood she doesn’t need to have as many appointments any more, she’s a lot stronger, my fiancee is a lot stronger now than she was before in terms of her health as well. It was just talking about it and reflecting on what the best decision was for us all – not just me.
"To her credit she said ‘It’s a huge football club, this opportunity doesn’t come around too often.’ She’d hate to be the person to say – you need to do what you need to do. Considering what she’s been through, it’s a credit to her. The biggest moment last season was when she could hear on the TV the atmosphere of the fans. In terms of how the fans react to the players and the passion for the players, you don’t get that anywhere else in England really.
"I’ll be honest, after the Fulham game I went away two hours after the match and I remember sitting on the plane thinking how the fans reacted to me and it was a massive moment. Even my fiancee was getting videos of it and saying ‘Wow, it’s something that doesn’t happen very often at any football club’. You don’t get that very often, it was a nice feeling and one that stuck with me during the summer. It was emotional when I got that ovation. The whole situation felt weird. It was the moment it hit home was the Liverpool game when we did the lap of honour. The whole game, the whole atmosphere was something I’ve never experienced before. It could have brought a tear to your eye. You had the manager uncertain, me uncertain, Rondon uncertain, it was a quite a lot of emotions to the game.
"Back in December I don’t think too many people would have thought that I’d be playing as well as I did or as regularly as I did. It’s just one of those things I thought it was me against everyone else. I did whatever I could, I tried my best – I always do. Hard work takes you places and it’s the same during the summer, I trained during the off season. I’ve had a lot of minutes."