Alex Greenwood

In football, if you don't have setbacks, that's abnormal.

I can speak about it now, but the couple of months after signing for City I went through a really difficult time. It was hard.

I do have so much more to me than football.

I suppose at Manchester United the players were learning from me a little bit.

When I was a captain at United, it was about being a leader and making sure everyone was OK and making sure everyone knew what we needed to do to get to where we wanted to be.

I always knew I wanted to play football. There was never any other option.

I watch the defenders in particular and I am an admirer of Mapi Leon.

Lyon's mentality and their drive to win is undoubtable.

If my goalkeeper gives a pass away trying to play out from the back, that is not something I am going to shout or scream about, because that is what we do, that is how we play, and we want to do that.

Doubts can almost take over a little bit, but I've had the time to reflect now and take a moment and speak to people closest to me and reassure myself, 'You know what, yes you are good enough, you are a good player.'

I'm not allowed to be a sulker in this family that I grew up in.

I wanted to create a safe place for girls to play football.

Of course, I judge a team on how much they can win and the consistency they have. I look at our men's team here at City and how consistent they are, winning back-to-back, season after season. The U.S.A. women's team were another example when they were winning consecutive World Cups.

I look at my social media sometimes and go, wow I just look like a boring footballer who does nothing else.

Every team goes through transitions - whether that be changes to the playing group or coaches - and that can cause disruption. It's about how you come out the other side of it.

It crosses the line when it becomes personal, something has to be done about social media abuse.

I have family who work with the NHS, and I don't think we can thank them enough.

You ask every footballer - we're very schedule-based people.

An Olympic Games, a Euros in our home country and then a World Cup which is three years back-to-back of the tournaments that you train all your life for to play in.

To prepare for a Euros, Olympics and a World Cup in the space of three years, it's not going to be easy. The pressure of wanting to medal in all of them is something we should embrace and enjoy.

It's not always plain sailing in an England shirt.

All we can control is what we do, winning matches.

We can't control people's comments.

If anything I got respected more because I was a girl.

Maybe I have a different story to other people, but I never struggled or suffered, being a girl.

You know in a Sarina camp that you have got to work extremely hard to keep your place in the side. Even if you have played in one particular game, it doesn't mean you'll necessarily play again. And that's pushing everyone to perform as well as they can.

Fuelling my body with nutritional food and supplements gives me an instant boost and is the reason why I have created my nutrition brand, Boast, to help people feel their very best.

As an athlete what I put in my body is vital for my performance and when I was preparing for the World Cup it meant that no matter what, regardless of where I was, nutrition needed to be at the forefront of my mind, as well as staying on top of my health inside and out.

I would like to see Fara Williams involved in the punditry.

Critiquing performances - positively or negatively - only helps to grow the sport, to get more people talking about it. A deeper level of analysis attracts more people to want to watch and listen, and that is the big thing we are still missing in women's football.

We have got world-class players in the Women's Super League and too many of them have been going under the radar without the opportunity for pundits to analyse their performances in detail.

Since Sky came onboard to show the WSL, the level of detail that Casey Stoney and Karen Carney have been speaking about games as pundits is brilliant.

What more can be done to help see better refereeing is a question we'll keep posing.

I know it might sound crazy coming from me but I actually feel sorry for referees in the women's game. They're not employed as full-time professional officials and yet they're often criticised or given a hard time over decisions they've made.

As much as I want to celebrate all of the positive developments in our sport, we cannot be complacent, we have to keep demanding improvements in all areas of women's football.

At a club like Man City, if you don't win football matches then you've got to expect fans and people to question you and be disappointed, and that's part of the game.

Things change in football so quickly.

Losing any game is not a nice feeling. It controls my whole day from that moment on, is constantly on my mind, and I'm not the greatest person to be around. I watch the match back as soon as I can, observe the things we did well, and the things we didn't.

When we mean business, we mean business.

Sarina can be serious at times, but she's also funny. She makes us laugh a lot on the training ground with her sense of humour.

I think it is massively important to have a doctor present, so there should be a doctor present whether you are the home or the away team in the WSL.

Challenging for headers in the air is part of the nature of the job when you play at centre-back. You can never be fearful because you would be more at risk if you were - the more you commit to a challenge, the safer you are.

At no point have I stepped on to the pitch thinking I am scared to head the ball, even when I had that mask on, and that will not change.

It is natural to think it is worse than it is and say 'ow is she staying on the pitch?' when a player is down for a long time without moving.

Not everyone is going to like how you play and who you play for.

Opinions on performances are always welcome, there is no issue with that, it's part of the game.

I know that people support teams, have loyalty to clubs and that is fine - I do also. When it crosses the line and gets personal something has to be done, it is happening far too often now.

When it affects your daily life that is when it becomes a problem for me. I suppose it depends on the individual and how you react to stuff on social media. It's quite easy for me to speak about now but I have been through it myself, it is not nice to see or read.

Whoever you play with you try and play to their strengths.

Listen, I'm not stupid so I am fully aware of the teams I've played for, and knew I'd gone from one side of Manchester to another. I was almost prepared for negativity. But then when people cross the line and make threats, that's when it becomes a bit much.