I had a great experience at Wigan and did well. When I came back to United, I started pre-season in 2011 well. That’s tended to be something I’ve done throughout my career. I don’t know if it’s because I keep myself in good nick over the summer or because I’m fresh, but I always tend to be sharp in pre-season. More often than not, I’ve started the first game of the league season.



That happened in 2011/12. From the moment I came on against City in the Community Shield to the moment I went off injured against Bolton five weeks later, that was a special time in my career. I find it hard to remember enjoying football more than I did in that period. Coming into a world class team and really finding my feet quickly, seeing off teams with loads of goals… it was amazing. I never thought I’d landed, but I felt at home in that team.



Then the injury against Bolton just killed me that year. It was a really complicated injury that I had in my foot. I look back and have a few regrets about the tackle that put me out, but I guess that’s part of the story too.



The same goes for how 11/12 ended. It doesn’t get much worse.



I wasn’t in the squad at Sunderland that day, but I was on my way down from the directors’ box at the Stadium of Light and as soon as Dzeko scored City’s equaliser, I knew. I could see it unfolding and that it was meant to be theirs. It was a terrible, terrible day in my career.



I still can’t listen to Martin Tyler’s commentary when the clip comes on Sky Sports.



You know the one.



I cannot listen to it. I have to turn over. My best mate, we’re both the same; can’t listen to it. Everything just comes back. Losing to your city rivals on goal difference with the last kick of the season, it doesn’t get much worse.



I’ll never forget in the dressing room after that game. The manager said to us all: ‘I told you. That ’s why I wanted you to be more ruthless and really kill teams, because you can lose leagues on goal difference.’



And he was right. We’d gone in after beating teams 3-0 or 4-0 that season and he still hadn’t been happy with us in the dressing room. That’s how much of a winner he was, how ruthless he wanted us to be. If we’d done that, scored more goals, really killed teams, we’d have won the league in 11/12. But had we done that, would we have had that real determination to win it the next year and win it as convincingly as we did?



Would that have been so sweet if it hadn’t been so sour the year before?



Certainly I was looking forward to 2012/13. I played for Team GB at the London Olympics – that’s something else I’ll be telling the kids about with great pride: being an Olympian – and even though we got knocked out in the quarters I felt like I played well. It kept my fitness up, playing a summer tournament, and I had confidence going into the new season.



The whole squad had a big boost, actually.



Robin.



For longevity, I have to say that Scholesy and Wazza are the best two players I’ve played with in my career so far, but if that Premier League winner’s medal in my trophy cabinet was owed to someone, it would have to be Robin van Persie. He was unbelievable. As an individual season, you’ll struggle to find many better than him in 2012/13.



Games where we didn’t even play well, that were such stalemates, you could just give him the ball and he would make a goal out of nothing. Just an unbelievable finisher. For me, I couldn’t have imagined his move going as well as it did. Everything he struck that season seemed to find the back of the net.



It wasn’t quite the same for me. Early on in the season I was aware that it was brewing and brewing that I hadn’t yet scored a senior goal. Newcastle came to Old Trafford in the League Cup and in the first half I missed a sitter.



I can’t really go into detail on the manager’s comments to me at half-time, but it was along the lines of ‘you couldn’t hit a barn door.’



I went out in the second half and scored.



I’d been at United since I was 11 years old.



What a moment.



Scoring at the Stretford End as an Academy graduate is great. People like Rashford, Welbeck, Lingard, it’s always in the media that they’re doing it, but if you go through individuals who’ve come through and done it, it’s not that many.



At the time, though, it was just a feeling of relief. In my previous loan spells I’d always scored goals, so it was just so good to get off the mark.