Robbie Savage

As the manager, Ive told my players that if anyone is sin-binned for backchat to referees or officials, they will miss the next two games - with no promises that they will get back in the side.

I have known Phil Neville personally for 25 years, since I was in the Class of 92 at Manchester United with his brother Gary, and Im going to stick up for him because he is a top, top bloke and a proper family man.

Phil Neville deserves better than a feeding frenzy of carping over his appointment as England Womens coach.

In fairness, 95 per cent of football fans are wonderful. A picture or an autograph is no problem for them.

As a player, I was a pantomime villain and I had my limitations. But I was also good enough to captain four Premier League clubs, win 39 caps for my country and be transferred for fees running into millions of pounds.

Owners and chairmen prefer to buy in talent as investments against relegation at one end of the table, or to attain the holy grail of European football at the top end.

At the top end, the pathway from academy to first team has never been more difficult for home-grown youngsters.

Growing up, my generation would practise on concrete in the backstreets, using garage doors or the health-centre walls as goals. Taking on the older boys in the neighbourhood taught me to be humble, too.

With only 30% of players in Premier League squads qualified to play for England, the accent on developing home-grown talent is heavier than ever.

If you have a big crowd for a derby game where passions run high, you dont ask inexperienced stewards to keep an eye on them for pocket money. You need to employ professionals and pay them the going rate.

The pitch is a footballers workplace. Fans have no more right to be on it during a game than a burglar has being in your house.

At highly-charged games, clubs need to employ experts who understand the tribal emotions of football and the potential for incidents. We need highly-trained security personnel, stationed two or three metres apart, with earpieces for communication, around the perimeter.

The more expensive your house, the more your insurance will cost.

Whatever he has achieved in football, Phil Neville has always bounced back from adversity - from giving away a crucial penalty at Euro 2000 to being thrown in the deep end as a pundit at the World Cup in Brazil.

And a bit of discipline never did 14-year-olds any harm.

I am passionate about grass-roots football providing a pathway to careers in the professional game, and I have seen a big step forward in terms of players behaviour.

Sin bins are the way forward if we want to turn the tide on discipline in football.

Football has not just been a part of my life: It has been the fabric of my life.

I remember my dad taking me to stand on the Kop at Wrexham to watch Dixie McNeil and Joey Jones, and jumping into his arms when they scored.

Since the age of four, all Ive wanted to do was play or watch football.

Im not ashamed to say Im addicted to football.

But 30 is a turning point in most footballers' lives - because your market value starts to fall.

The club is always bigger than the individual, and employers can make a player's life miserable if they want.

At Birmingham, I was a pain in the backside for my manager Steve Bruce when I found out Blackburn wanted to sign me and it was a chance to play for Mark Hughes, a player I had idolised when he wore the red shirt of Wales.

Football is a short-lived career, and you have to maximise your earning power while you can.

In 2015-16, when Leicester won the title, I didnt really believe they were going to do it until the last four or five weeks of the season.

If have done well for Leeds then Id have loved to have played for Manchester United, that would have been great.

I dont regret for one minute that I only won one trophy because again, to play at Wembley and lift the trophy, how many players can say that? Of course, Id like to have been in contention to win trophies every single year, but I wasnt, but I can sleep easy at night knowing I got the best out of what I had.

I believe I had an unbelievable career. Because there are so many kids who will never get the opportunities I had with more footballing ability.

The thing is, I think all my experiences, good and bad on the football field, helped me in my punditry because Ive been in situations where Ive gone to ground too easily, Ive made a mountain out of a molehill, Ive tried to get players sent off for the good of my team, wrongly. Ive acted stupidly, celebrated.

I'm horrendous at dancing but I think if you do 'Strictly', you go on to another level, and that's a level I have never been at.

I'm not a Gary Neville or a Jamie Carragher, or somebody who doesn't need to do their apprenticeship in the media and can go straight into it because they've played for massive clubs. I've had to work at it but I believe I am better than them.

I'm not the most articulate guy in the world or the most educated but whatever I get into I'm passionate about and give everything I've got.

I'd rather blow up than fizzle out. I don't want to fade away and go down the leagues.

I dont like Graham Poll. He thinks he is pretty special, and Im not quite sure why.

If you ask your players to be brave on the ball, sometimes they are going to make mistakes or get caught out.

You know the madness of the English football season has kicked in when a fan rings up 606 and says Arsenal will win the title.

With games being called off, and clubs having to field under-strength teams because of Covid outbreaks, it looks terrible when pictures emerge of Premier League players enjoying social gatherings in blatant breach of the regulations.

Brendan Rodgers is leading Leicester City back into the Champions League - and he is a future Manchester United manager.

You'll find that I've watched around 400 games at age-group level, from six to 14 years old, over the last eight years because both my sons play for academy teams - and I have not seen a single dive.

I have always been an advocate of market forces and players being paid whatever clubs are prepared to pay them. Good luck to them.

This is madness - when a single footballer is more expensive than building a hospital or school, the transfer market has lost its marbles.

When I was playing, it wasnt even close. Arsenal were the team to beat when you turned off the North Circular.

If wildly variable refereeing standards not yet a crisis, we are reaching a tipping point. And it may take more than the dawn of VARs to sort out the mess.

If we are going to ban players for alleged dives, its time there was a panel of ex-managers and players who put blundering referees on trial - and absolute howlers should be punished with a ban, the same as retrospective action against players.

Too many points are being won or lost on the back of bad decisions which could cost clubs a place in the Champions League or send them down.

Great players don't always make great managers, but I hope a golden generation of fantastic players' knowledge is not going to be lost when they surely have something to offer as coaches.

Not many people leave a job where they have fallen short and land another one higher up the ladder. Nice work if you can get it.

No other industry appears to reward failure more than football's managerial merry-go-round.

Yeah I've got a mouth on me, but what I do is I give it as I see it.