I think that with West Ham, it was more complicated for me. It happened naturally; there was urgency to leave West Ham.
My family have always been West Ham fans, so growing up, I used to go and watch them, and so I was a West Ham supporter.
When I was a player, you only left the club if they wanted to get rid of you. That was your team - if you were at West Ham, you didn't leave until the manager wanted to replace you. You didn't think about playing for Arsenal or Chelsea.
The man who comes to take care of my piranhas told me that if I left West Ham he would kill all my fish.
If I was a normal player at West Ham and wanted to join a Chinese club, nobody would have said anything. But since I was a leader at West Ham and thought about that offer, I was suddenly a bad man.
Believe me, I look back on West Ham in a good way.
I was walking along somewhere in the Maldives and there were West Ham fans there. It's crazy.
Playing left midfield a lot at West Ham has been tough but the manager has put me there and I've got every faith in what he's doing.
When I left West Ham in 2004 there was a chance of them signing me instead of Spurs, but it isn't something I think about too often. I've been spoilt during my career.
I leave, and the leaving is so exhilarating I know I can never go back. But then what? Do I just keep leaving places, and leaving them, and leaving them, tramping a perpetual journey?
I actually had the chance to sign for Newcastle before I went to West Ham; I didn't in the end because they had got rid of their reserve team. There were a few clubs interested but I liked what West Ham had to offer and never regretted signing for them, I loved it straight away.
I could be ordering ham at the deli, and someone will turn around and look at me and kind of stare. They'll just look at me like, 'I know I know your voice, and I know I know your face.'
West Ham have a great academy.
I hope that the future is great for West Ham.
West Ham was the best choice for me on the back of my best season in Ligue 1. I don't think there was much room left for progress in Ligue 1.
I never went overseas until I left school and joined West Ham United Football Club at the beginning of the Sixties.