I’m in a good place at the moment. I’m in Exeter and I want to start working again, I need to be busy. I want people to hear my story, from me. My words, my stories. I call it ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’! There’s a lot of good, a little bit of bad and a tiny bit of ugly. Although I can’t do a good Clint Eastwood impression and my shooting wasn’t as good as his either!

In terms of work, I’d like to do holiday camps over the summer, at places all over the south-west, like Torquay or Dawlish. I was at the Langstone Cliff Hotel in Dawlish over the weekend, it’s a nice place. I want to tell people my story, about my experience of life. I’d like to do all sorts of things, like shop openings, signing sessions and football tournaments, where I can give advice. I can do presentations, talks and visits to schools, if headmasters want to get in touch. For all ideas, just email me through my website.

I love to do presentations, so I can show everyone the DVD of my career and tell them my stories. You can buy my life story DVD directly from Midnight Productions and I plan to do some signing sessions for that in the south-west in the weeks ahead. Keep a look out and make sure you follow me on Twitter for the latest details. And all the stories are true. I know, because I was there!

I’m so pleased Palace stayed up. I knew they wouldn’t go down. I had faith, in the players and the management. The atmosphere at the Middlesbrough game was incredible, like old-fashioned football. The atmosphere was fantastic, from both sets of fans. I saw the last few minutes from the Directors’ Box and the tension was amazing. When I went inside to the restaurant, for the post-match talk, everyone was smiling. They didn’t need to say a word! Palace have a great chance to have a really good campaign next season and maybe have a good cup run. All fans enjoy that and Palace fans are the same.

I’m surprised Palace haven’t appointed a new manager yet. I was a bit taken aback that Big Sam left, but I respect his reasons. Personally, I‘d love to be involved and pass on my knowledge to the players. I know I can help. I was offered the Palace job once, a two-year contract, but let’s say I got a call later and the deal was off, which was a shame. I’d have loved it. I’d like to see an English manager at Palace. I’d like to see Glenn Hoddle there and for me to be around and give my input. I’ve got a lot of respect for Glenn and I’m a Palace man. And Arsenal of course! Mark Bright is there as an ambassador and I’d love to be involved in the training. I have lots of ideas of how to help. That would be a dream to me. I know I have knowledge, for how to win games and defending. I’d love to have that opportunity to do it for real.

Me with Glenn Hoddle – in our younger days!

Arsenal are usually consistent and they had some good results last season, like beating Chelsea 3-0, but they were very poor in other games. For the cup final, neutrals would have expected Chelsea to win the FA Cup, but Arsenal made them look an average side at Wembley. When you do that, it frightens teams. Arsene Wenger will want to prove a point next season. I think you’ll see a different Arsenal. Wenger will say that we’ll concentrate on the Premier League. He’ll mention not being in the Champions League and it could work out in Arsenal’s favour not to be in it.

With the way the season ended, I think Wenger will want to do something next season. I’d like to see him show the passion he did when he first joined the club. He knows he has a point to prove. He needs to keep key players – Sanchez, Chamberlain, Giroud and Ramsey. They’re four very good players. I’d like Giroud to be the main striker. Chamberlain is very important. If players aren’t performing, you tell them. If they’re doing well, you don’t drop them. Wenger used to hug his players. Mourinho used to do it, stick up for them. Conte did it and I think that is a secret with the players, the players can think “I want to do it for him next week”. Players need that.

England’s two recent matches in Scotland and France looked like two friendlies. I think there is more to come from these players. They should have gone at Scotland from the start. You look at the two free-kicks we conceded, we don’t seem to know our best goalkeeper. You need to trust your keeper. We have a very good attacking squad and we need to make the most of it. Players might say they are tired but players are fit. You want players to have a good attitude, even at the end of the season. I think we have a very good squad and there is more to come. I’m hoping that Gareth Southgate will make brave decisions. Play players in the right positions, doing the right things and they must have a Plan B. If your main plan is sussed, you can shout ‘Plan B!’ and everyone knows what it is and switches to it. Like you get half a yard of space and get crosses in from both wings and get Alli in for headers.

I was asked recently what my England goal celebration was. And I said “I don’t know’! I only scored once. It was a 5-0 World Cup qualifier, against Finland, at Wembley, in October 1984. We were 4-0 up and Bobby Robson told me we needed to keep scoring, because goal difference could be important. I threw the ball into midfield from the half-way line. Ray Wilkins played it out to Mark Chamberlain on the right, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s Dad. I kept running, literally to the penalty spot. I must have been about 14 yards out. The ball came across from Chamberlain. Mark Hateley took a swing at it with his right foot, but it went through his legs. And it came to me. I just swung my right foot at it – like a bad golfer – and it went in. But I didn’t know what to do! I just stood there! Then my teammates jumped on me! So I didn’t score many for my country, but at least I got one.

Leicester’s players let down Claudio Ranieri. I’ve never been a manager, but the manager will always get the blame. In my day, if the players weren’t doing so well, the manager would get the sack. It was the chairman, then the manager, then the players. Now it’s different: it’s the players, owners second and the manager third. Yet he still gets the blame. If Leicester go on a run now, everyone will know it was the players. They’ll have let Ranieri down. There has to be something more to this story, much more. For some reason we don’t know, it was like Leicester’s players didn’t want to play for the manager any more.

Craig Shakespeare steered Leicester to a great win over Liverpool. What now if they win three games in a row? Should he get the job? I’m surprised that Roy Hodgson is in the mix to replace Ranieri. I thought Roy was poor in the summer as England manager. He was sat on the bench, when he could have been in the technical area, helping the team to improve. He wouldn’t be my choice to replace Ranieri. Nigel Pearson has respect at Leicester. Sometimes players respect coaching staff. Players have power, on and off the pitch. They might like Shakespeare. This happened at Chelsea, with Mourinho. The players lost respect after the incident with the physio. That’s player power! Sports people have a lot of power nowadays, as individuals and as a group.

The frightening thing for me is that if Leicester build on beating Liverpool, it’ll be bad for my old team Crystal Palace. Hopefully Palace will be lifted and the players will think “Hold on, if Leicester are doing well, we have to lift our game”. Palace are working hard. They worked very hard in the first half against Middlesbrough and the atmosphere in the second half was incredible. Every time Palace got the ball, the excitement was unbelievable. The tension and the atmosphere was amongst the best I’ve seen for some time. The moans and groans when Boro had the ball and the cheers when we did. The ref played maybe seven minutes of injury time and the tension was fantastic! I did the post-match chat in Speroni’s and everyone was buzzing, it was fantastic to see.

Palace have to go into every game and try to win. Single points are not enough. We have to beat the teams around us. West Brom away is next and our old boss Tony Pulis will have a big insight on Palace. He’s a bright manager, very experienced and he’ll target our weak spots. If we can get a 0-0 out of that, I’d be very pleased. The next game before the international break is Watford at home. If we can get four points from those two games, that’s what we’ve got to do. Try to make it solid, 1-0. We’ve got to make a statement in the next two games, because of the break, to show our rivals that we are hard to beat.

We need those four points because next is Chelsea and Southampton away and we have to stick ten men behind the ball and defend for our lives. It’s going to go to the end of the season, there’s no doubt about that in my mind. I don’t care what you have to put in front of the goal, do it! It comes to the point where you have to fight for your life. Every player must defend for their life. Hopefully we can get enough points out of those four games, that it helps to make us safe. Next after that will be Arsenal at home and Palace just have to hope that maybe a top team like Arsenal might have a nightmare. That’s what makes the Premier League such a brilliant league, the best in the world. Leicester have got something about them again now and all the teams around them will need to work twice as hard.

Palace’s last six games are a massive contrast. Three sides in relegation battles at home and three sides vying for Europe away! For your last six games you’d like teams that have nothing to play for. City and Utd won’t win the league now, Arsenal might be playing for second place by then. Hopefully some of the others might have gained some points too. It would be better for Palace if these sides have less to play for by the time we play them. It would be lovely if we could beat Leicester and Burnley at home! The next two games are obviously the important ones – West Brom and Watford – and we can’t think too far too ahead. I’ll do a blog nearer the time to discuss how things have gone, but Palace will need to take stock as they go along.

For Arsenal, it’s not been a good season. Chelsea will win the league. If we can finish second and win the FA Cup, I think most Arsenal fans will be happy with that. There’s a lot of talk about Wenger going and I think it’ll be a tough end to the season. Will Wenger go? It’s a huge decision for the club. If they had a massive run in the league they could win it, but realistically the Premier League and the Champions League are out of the question now. There’s unrest among Liverpool fans too and that’s football now: supporters keep behind the players. I’ve told the story before of how when Stuart Pearce was Man City manager he wanted to out a player for diving, but the City fans backed the player and they booed Pearce! Even though he was telling the truth!

In the Champions League, there’s one thing to say: the Arsenal players have something to prove. The first leg defeat in Germany has knocked the wind out of the players. They should be in the press before the second leg saying to the fans “We’re going to make this up to you”. And then if you win 2-0, you can turn round and say that you’ve done your bit. I think it’s all over completely as a tie. All the Arsenal players can do now is put on a performance for the fans.

Arsene Wenger has done a magnificent job at Arsenal, there’s no doubt about it, but all the excitement there used to be has gone. If Wenger is going to go, then it should be announced soon. If the new man was someone young, bring them in early and let them learn in what’s left of the season. Obviously that wouldn’t happen with a more experienced man, who could be challenging for honours elsewhere, but could with someone like Eddie Howe. We had a famous Don Howe, maybe Eddie could be similar. And if he could do half as well, that would be a great compliment to Don!

I was at Wembley Stadium recently, for a photoshoot to commemorate 50 years of the League Cup Final taking place there. It was fantastic and I remember very well lifting the trophy as captain for Arsenal in 1987. The win was remembered for it being the first time Liverpool lost when Ian Rush had scored. Charlie Nicholas scored two goals – two of the softest goals you’ll ever see! I got very emotional afterwards and I said in TV interviews that my medal was for my son Harry.

I chatted to the new England boss Gareth Southgate at the Wembley photoshoot and I said to him “how comes we don’t do throw-ons more quickly and give the ball away so much?” So if in England’s next games you can see that we are taking quick throw-ons and giving the ball away less, you can put that one down to me! I’m looking forward to England’s next games, a friendly in Germany on March 22nd and home to Lithuania a few days later. Southgate can use the Germany friendly to field the players where he wants them to be.

Gareth won’t see the players every week, so he’ll have to work closely with his staff and scouts. You have to play the right players up against the right opponents. You need to have a Plan A, Plan B and a Plan C. And then a Plan D. In the modern game, Plan A is not enough, you need options. Different plans, that you can shift to when you need to. That’s why training is so important. Training can be like hard work, but it is so important, to plan for winning matches.

Personally, I’m in a good place. I’m feeling safe and well. I’m working at Palace, a club I love. I’m doing some work and looking to do talks in schools about my life experiences, including showing a DVD of some career moments. So I’m in a good place and I hope it carries on. I’m taking life one day at a time and I’m doing well against my addictions. I have projects I am working on and I aim to keep it that way. The support has been fantastic and it means a lot to me.

I’ve been filming interviews towards a life story DVD and there are two film premiere dinners coming up, in London, where the film will be shown, on March 31 and April 7. There will be some special guests there too, so if you want to come along to meet me and share these special nights, please book now (I’m listed just after the Kerry Dixon events).

I’m gobsmacked about the child abuse allegations in football. With computers now, you hear about paedophiles, but football? If anything had happened to me, I’d have spoken to my manager and my Mum. I was quite an aggressive kid, I’d have said something. I’m amazed that it was going on, even then. It’s come more to people’s knowledge now, with the internet. I couldn’t imagine it happening to me.

I’m amazed it’s taken so long for it to come out. We got coached and trained hard and worked hard. I’ve never heard anything. All the coaches were good and polite. I find it quite unreal. I’ve not heard of any Palace players involved from the past, from the reports in recent weeks. Most players my age, I‘d have thought nothing had happened. I count myself fortunate.

But it can happen in all walks of life. There’ll be many kids out there being sexually abused. The FA has to make sure that coaches are well interviewed, their family looked into. The interviews have to be much stricter. It has to be clear that sentences have to be stronger. There has to be warnings that if you’re caught, you are in deep trouble. Parents now will be thinking “I’d better go to training”. “What’s happening in the showers after training?” It’s pretty scary. It’s a big situation. We have to get our house in order, here in England.

With England on the pitch, Gareth Southgate’s done well in his four games and the FA have gone about things the right way. Now, if players aren’t turning up or aren’t bothered, they should not get picked anymore. “Get the taxi home”. Regarding drinking, if it’s a few drinks after a game it’s not so bad. When I was first in the England senior squad, I didn’t drink. We’d meet up on a Sunday night, with Ron Greenwood and he’d let us go off down the pub for a team talk. I didn’t drink then. I was the driver. I was drinking orange and lemonade. The following day, the papers would say I’d had eight pints!

If Gareth can get 90% out of the youngsters – and the senior players, help to get the best of them – he’ll do very well. Fabregas had great players around him when he started at Arsenal and he became great himself in two years. If Gareth can get the best out of that group of youngsters, we can do very well. It’s about individuals first: do your job. Then you can pass your intelligence around you. If you all do your job, then you’ve got a chance. He’s worked with the young players in this squad, I think he’s got a good chance. The one thing he’s got to do after every match is tell the truth. Be honest. If you go round the houses and pass off a poor performance, everyone can see through it.

At Man Utd, something has gone wrong with Mourinho. Only his family might know. Something is missing. When Wenger came to Arsenal, he’d be on the pitch at the end and hug his players. Mourinho at Chelsea, did the same. But if players aren’t happy, you can’t win anything. The Utd dressing room doesn’t sound healthy. They have some great players in that team. You’d think “Let’s attack teams”. There’s something definitely going wrong there. It might take someone coming out and saying it. At the end of the day, especially for most of the top players, they want to win. One might come out and say it as it is, either themselves or through a source.

I’ve heard rumours that if a manager has a go at one player, he tells his teammates and they turn against the manager. Players have power. I know one story with Stuart Pearce, when he was at Man City. A player of his had dived and Pearce agreed so, in a radio interview. The player later came to see Pearce and told him that he should’ve stood up for him. It turned out that the City fans backed the player on it, not Pearce. In football, the power is with the player. It used be Chairman, Manager, Player. Now it’s Player, Owner, Manager.

I can’t believe that Palace are going through runs of defeats and then runs of wins. When players start winning, they get confident. When players aren’t confident, they don’t always want the ball. I’ve seen Palace a few times this season and the closing down is first-class, but we’re soon giving the ball away. Puncheon has gone back up a couple of steps, he’s getting more involved. There is improvement there.

I know Pardew is working hard with the players on the training pitch. He’s invited me down to the training ground, to watch training and have some lunch together. I have some ideas and we’ll have a chat. There’s a few things I’d like to mention, in a nice football way. I’m very confident that Palace will turn it around and get wins against some of the teams around them. Home wins, Alan will plan around them. They’re certainly getting crosses in. I like Wickham and I’d like Palace to play two up front and encourage their teammates to get the ball into the box.

Arsenal are out of the League Cup and that’s a shame. When I was the captain and we won the League Cup in 1987, we’d gone without a trophy for eight years. To beat Liverpool was great. I understand the need to play youngsters, but eight changes? Tiredness for me is a load of rubbish. I’m told the players are fitter these days. Frank McLintock would play 60 matches a season, on muddy pitches. Modern players play on carpets. When you see Hull and Southampton in the semi-finals, if Arsenal had played a full side we could have been there too. When you make major changes, it’s not good for the fans. They want to see youngsters come through, but when you are in the quarter-finals you want to win the cup.

Generally though, Arsenal move the ball so quickly. Walcott has stepped up, no doubt. Giroud should play every game. Get in the crosses. We need to spot the small things, to help us get wins. Not just a plan B, but a plan C too. Play against the reserves and work on things like how do we come back from 2-0 down, get a shape. I think Arsenal have a chance to win the league this season. Teams are dropping points and it looks like a very open season. If a team can go eight games winning, they can win it.

Personally, I’m in the best place I’ve been in for some time. I’m being positive. I’m doing an interview with ITN next week. I want to work. I want to tell my story, I think it’s interesting. Presentations with ex-players, dinners, lunches, golf days, that sort of thing. The better the shot, the better the joke! It’s ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’. There was a lot of good – playing as a schoolboy, being at Palace, joining a big club like Arsenal and then England. Drinking took over from my football and that was the bad. The ugly took over my whole life. I lost my life and had time sleeping on the streets. That’s the ugly side of it, from where I was at, at 15. The gap between the good and the ugly is not very nice.

All my stories are true and honest, because I was at them all! I was there! I honestly feel that I do not want to get drunk ever again. I can be funny sober. I have to take one day at a time but I know that if I am working regularly it will help to keep me in a good place. I write things in a pad, to help to keep myself positive, small things that help me. I’d like a write a diary and maybe turn it into a book. I do Palace home games and I’m doing a radio show this weekend with Stan Collymore. I’m enjoying telling people about my football career. I’d like to write my story, in my words.