Swansea City proved to be a case of the right people in the right place at the right time. We were on an upward spiral, so when Roberto was given the job as Wigan manager and asked me to join him once again as assistant, it was far from being a no-brainer. My family was settled in Swansea and the club had asked me to take on the vacant manager’s role.

I’d always wanted to be a manager.

But I had such a powerful dynamic with Roberto. We were on a journey together, and ultimately that journey won out. I couldn’t let him down.

Wigan was always going to work out for us thanks to the backing of Dave Whelan.

A lot of clubs could take inspiration from his way of working. Assess the people you’re hiring. Are they good at what they do? Are they committed? Creative? Then stick by them.

With Mr Whelan’s backing, we had the comfort to work as we wished. Three times we were bottom, or joint-bottom, of the Premier League with 10 games of the season left. Three times we escaped relegation. The consistency of our work always came through in the end.

“We went from an extreme high to devastating low in a matter of days. The pain was immense”

Then, in our fourth season, it more than came through. We reached the FA Cup final against Manchester City.

Manchester City.

The best team in the country. Carlos Tevez, Sergio Aguero, Yaya Toure, David Silva, Vincent Kompany. We were praying that we weren’t going to be embarrassed. But, at the same time, we knew there was an opportunity. If things went our way, we knew we’d get a chance to win the game.

I grew up watching FA Cup finals at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon at the end of the season. They were massive events. How I’d always imagined an FA Cup final… well, that didn’t turn out to be the reality.

We kicked off at 5.30pm with two games left in our season. Rain was coming down. It was a horrible day. Tactically, we knew exactly how we wanted the game to go. We’d beaten top-four teams with relative consistency in our four seasons at Wigan, and thought we’d be able to do so again.

Our chance came in stoppage time.

Minutes later, when the final whistle blew, our reality was difficult to comprehend. It was a sheer buzz, an extreme high.

For about two hours.