I want to clear something up, first of all. Some of you seem to have got the wrong impression from last week's blog, about Ryan Giggs winning the Player of the Year award.

I don't actually think that Pharrell Bell is a better player than Ryan Giggs. Nor that I ever will be. Just that I think that I have actually had a better Premier League season this year than he has. No-one in their right mind can disagree with that, can they?

Anyone who says that a guy who has started 12 games and scored one goal has had a better season than someone who has played twice as many games and scored twice as many goals, well they're just wrong.

You know, people say that football is all about opinions and that's what makes it so great, blah-di, blah-di, blah. Well, fair enough. But that particular opinion is just madness. Plain and simple.

Anyway, don't get me wrong, I'm happy for Giggsy. He's a class act. There are not many top Premier League stars as nice as he is, off the pitch. You'll not read much about Giggs's private life in the newspapers; he's a good, clean-living boy.

Not like some of the players up at Middlesbrough. They've had a tough time of it over the last week or so: not only does it look like they might be going down to the Championship, but they had a close run-in with swine flu this week.

Apparently, a couple of the squad's WAGs recently came back from a holiday in Mexico and had to be tested for the killer disease - which would have spread rapidly through the Boro squad, had they been found to be infected.

You see, us top Premier League players spend so much time together at a football club, we basically live in each other's pockets. Nasty little infections and diseases can spread like wildfire.

Think about it: we roll around in the mud together, we shower together, we flick wet towels at each other in the dressing room, we share bedrooms together on away trips.

If one of us catches something unpleasant, we're all at risk. I've seen first-hand how something can spread through a club. It wasn't pleasant, let me tell you, looking around the dressing room to see an entire squad itching and scratching their nether regions.

The girl responsible, her name is mud, even now, five years on. She'll never bag herself another footballer, that's for sure. At least, not one with any sense. Parties in penthouse flats, whirlwind shopping trips to New York, and being chased by photographers outside trendy nightclubs - those days are over for that particular wanabee WAG.

Don't get me wrong; she's still good for a late-night call after a few beers, as I discovered a couple of weeks ago. But I would have to think twice if she ever asked me to "get serious" again.

That's one of the problems about being a top Premier League star, you see. There are just so many people out there who only want to use you for your fame and money. It's such a distraction, and you have to be really careful.

It's difficult sometimes knowing whether someone likes you for who you really are, or whether it's because they have somehow found out that you earn £25k-a-week. I've had my fingers burnt in the past, and it's made me very wary and suspicious of people, especially pretty girls.

I wish I had the confidence to settle down with a nice girl, like Giggsy has done, and put all the wild bikini parties behind me. But I'm not sure I'll ever be able to fully trust a WAG not to run off with my credit card at the first chance she gets.

I've had gorgeous girls telling me they don't care how much I earn (about £1.3m a year) or how famous I am; that they want me for my amazingly toned body and because I'm the brightest, kindest guy they've ever met.

Even writing this blog for ESPN Soccernet has been a bit of a curse, to be honest. Now I'm getting girls telling me that they've read it ever week and they just love how intelligent I am and how good a writer I am and how I could even write a story book if I put my mind to it.

But I still have this nagging doubt that all this might just be stuff they tell me because they want to get their photo in OK! Magazine. I know I should be more trusting, but I've got so much to lose by picking the wrong pretty girl.

Not that I would swap it for anything else, and I know I've said it before, but being a top Premier League star has its problems. To reach the top, you have to have more than just an amazing talent with your feet. You need to be pretty smart up-top as well.