MY TEAM OF THE YEAR

WE'VE been voting for our PFA team of the year this week, which might seem strange with nearly a quarter of the season stilll to go.

Every player has to vote for the best 11 in their league. You'd think we would know all the players in our division but when we start filling out the form there are always shouts of: "Someone name me a left back" or "who's the foreign guy at Swansea?"

We usually end up just putting down players we have played against recently or even mates from other clubs. My team was no different - Dorus de Vries (Swansea); Damien Delaney (QPR), Kaspars Gorkss (QPR), Graham Alexander (Burnley), Ivar Ingimarrson (Reading). Leon Britton (Swansea), Jordi Gomez (Swansea), Stephen Hunt (Reading), Michael Kightly (Wolves); Sylvan Ebanks-Blake (wolves), Jason Scotland (Swansea).

We had some typical Bloomfield Road weather for our game against Burnley last week.

Their keeper, Brian Jensen, waited a good two minutes to take a goal-kick because the ball wouldn't stay still in the howling wind and rain. There was a stand-off between Jensen and the ref, Lee Mason, who even thought about holding the ball still for the kick.

It must have been Mason's first visit to Bloomfield Road because he looked very worried about the wind and even tried to abandon the game before the managers stepped in.

Tony Parkes probably just told him it was like that in every night game, so postponing things wouldn't have made much difference.

Harder

In hindsight, we'd have been a lot better off by getting the game postponed because we would have avoided our fourth straight home defeat.

Our form this season is the opposite of the last campaign. We can't win at home now, but we're good away from home. I think our style of play is better suited to away matches as we like to soak up the pressure then hit teams on the break. I know some players prefer playing away because there is less pressure and we play up to the underdog tag, as the opposition fans usually get impatient if they are not beating us after about ten minutes.

I'm still working hard in the gym to get over my knee injury. We're being linked with a new target man every week but that only makes me work even harder. I'm doing so much cycling I feel like Lance Armstrong.

Every player has to vote for the best 11 in their league. It's strange because you think you know all the players in the league but then when you are filling them in there are always shouts of, "Someone name me a left back", or: "Who's the foreign guy at Swansea". We usually end up just putting down players we have played against recently or even your mates from other clubs.

This week, my old team-mate at Hull, Boaz Myhill, rang up to boast. "Guess who I'm meeting next week?" he said.

I came up with Jordan and John Prescott. Wrong on both counts - the answer is the Queen, which was a massive shock to me.

Turns out the Queen was visiting Hull and Boaz was there to represent the club. How the other half live!

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