and you could see his connection with his team—mates. and at the end of the session, he carries the equipment. he grabs the equipment and walks it into the equipment room. we don't have a lot of first—team pros that do that. just shows that he's prepared to roll up his sleeves and get to work. i think it's been a perfect fit. you don't know what you're going to get in a forward defensively, i guess. he's here to win and to perform, and he'll do whatever it takes to win a game. that resonated with our team. he does what he does. he trains hard, he makes the right play, he's super talented as a player. and with a large amount of experience. it wasn't... it was pretty seamless. he just fit in. instantly, he became one of the guys. he didn't ask for special treatment. and i think the guys took to him very quickly. i think it's important you're part of the team and you do what your team—mates are doing. wouldn't come in and

start demanding things. i don't see it as a big issue, to be honest. i think it's just wayne. he just wants to play his football. he doesn't care about all those things. he cares having good team—mates, being in a good situation, but not worrying about all this other stuff. he just wants to play the game. he loves the game. you always said you wouldn't play abroad, didn't you? what changed 7 when i was younger, you never think of playing anywhere other than the premier league. you just look at different opportunities and you have to make a decision which is the best avenue to take, really. and, just felt at the time, this was the best one for me to take. how important was it for you to come here with still plenty left in the tank? yeah, i think it was the right time for me to come and play here. but also for my family, with the ages of my children. if i came here two

years down the line, then it probably would have been too late to come and try and start at a later age. so i think the timing, my age, and the timing with my children was right. what are the biggest sort of lifestyle changes for you being here? i think it's just a bit more relaxing for us as a family. if you want to go to the supermarket or you want to pop out and get a coffee, then it's quite easy to do, where, at times in england, it could be a bit difficult. to have a bit more space and a bit more time to enjoy with your family is something a bit different to what i'm used to. you don't have the tabloids after you, right? he's allowed to come here with his wife and family, live in the suburbs, take his kids to the playground. in dc, he can have that life. still a very international city. still easy to get back and forth wherever he wants to go, but without that flash that la or new york would have,

where he's not going being chased by the tabloids any more, which is probably a real pleasant change for him. everyone knows you back home and you do have to plan things a bit more than you would. you can be a bit spontaneous, pick the kids up from school and go and do whatever the kids want to do, really, rather than, sometimes, doing what you think is the easiest thing to do. you're not a zlatan. you know, you're not a showy person, this big sort of ego. but you almost get airdropped midseason into a club. that's a difficult thing to negotiate, isn't it? were you worried about what they might think of you? no, not really. i think i've always been confident in my ability. the weather at the time, it was so hot and... wondering how i'd respond to playing in that heat.

it was fine. i adjusted really well to it. we went on a good run of winning games, and i think once the team saw that we actually were good enough to win games against the better teams in the league also, then it gave the team a lot of confidence, and we've be playing with that for the last two months now. and was it important for you to let the fans and, obviously, the people who hired you very early on that you weren't just here for one final big paycheque, you were here to work? yeah. i think, certainly, the owners and ben, the manager, they knew from speaking to me that that wasn't the case. and you have people who compare you to other players who came over here and not done so well. i was absolutely worried that this was just another cash grab, that he was going to come in, make some money, "see you later" and that was it. we were in last place, so it could not have gotten much worse. it was midseason. you know, you drop a superstar into a club, a league he's never played in, players he has never played with. it's not going to work right

away, or at least that's what everybody expected. so you have a corner at the end of the game. our goalie comes up. they need three points out of this match, and one point probably isn't even going to do it. but to take a loss in this situation would be gutting. shaking my head, saying, "this is it. our season is done. we're done." it comes out. willjohnson‘s running on it. he's the type of player that other players dislike off the pitch. so, fans, you can imagine how we feel about him. you know, our defence is still up in the box. are they going to take this away from us? are they going to steal this? and then i see this streak going across the field. ijust remember thinking, like, "that was great. he slowed down the play. now our defence can get back." you just think immediately, like, "at least it's done." and then all of a sudden, it's served upfield. he just lashes this 40—yard crossfield ball right on the head of a 5—3 attacker.

i think his header actually gets lost. for the size of him, for him to get up so high and score, it was a great header. but i think, for me, for the team, it was a big moment to go from drawing the game to winning the game, and really giving us that belief that we can go on and make the playoffs. that's a type of moment you don't need to hammer home to your team. there's 50 million views around the world or however many. these guys are on their phones all day long, and they see it, and they understood what it represented, and what type of person and player that we now are happy to have here at dc united. i watch him at the end of the game. he is grinning from ear to ear. he looks like a kid having a blast. it could be someone's backyard, it could be on the street somewhere. and it becomes infectious. if that can happen, anything can happen in our season. and it did.

i think he's raised the levels of everyone on our team. everyone. eve ryone's gotten better after he's come here. it's pretty cool to see that, when you know the guys have potential and then he brings the best out of them. he's pretty vocal in the locker room, before games or half—time. and even after games. i think there was an instance last week where we had won a game, and it wasn't our best performance by any means, and he came in and said it wasn't good enough. and everyone was kind of thrown off, like, "whoa, we just won the game. and it wasn't good enough?" it was a nice kick in the butt. it was a wake—up call for us. he came here looking like a 20—year—old looking to prove himself. that's kind of the level of effort he was laying out. i think the response, both of the supporters and also from the other players in the field, everyone's everyone's responded to that. i'm not someone that just wants to win.

you want to win and perform well. of course, there's games where you have to accept taking the victory. but you want to perform well as a team and know what you are working on in training, you're achieving it on the pitch. the facilities aren't probably what he's been used to over in england. i've been there, i've seen those training grounds. and... yeah, this needs some work. you have roomed with him when you've been on away trips. that must be a new thing for him. yeah, he said he just wanted to be another guy on the team, and that's the way you're treated here. and he flew on a commercial flight with us and then roomed with me in one of our away games, so i guess it was weird for him. it was something different i've never really done before. but that's part of it, and again, it's not really a big deal to me. but he had a gripe about you, didn't he? yeah, he did. i usually like to sleep with my laptop playing some form of sitcom, because i like to fall asleep to a type of show that

i've watched before. anything. and i love trashy reality television. what do you think annoyed him about rooming with you? i don't know. i think i'd be the perfect roommate. perfect! has he imposed his music on the locker room yet? a little bit. interesting taste in music. as captain, i put the music i want on rather than their music all the time. i guess it's a little different than what i am used to listening to. a bit ofjames bay. ed sheeran. mumford and sons. it's quite chilled out, really. maybe that's the problem. maybe it's too chilled out. what was it like this summer to watch england reach a semi—final in a world cup? the last time i watched england, the set up was when i was 16 and i7. so to go back to that and watch as a fan was different to, obviously, what

i've been used to. but it was great. as an england fan, i obviously wanted them to go one step further and try to get to the final, where anything can happen. plenty of pundits, including roy hodgson — your former manager — saying you've left europe too soon, you still have plenty left to give. what would you say to them? yeah, i still feel i'm good enough to play in the premier league. but, again, it was a decision i made based on where i felt was the right place for me to play. i think he's enjoying it. and as a manager, that's exciting, to have a guy come in your team with his resume, with his stature, and to seem to be enjoying the game again. and when i watched him last year, it didn't seem like he was having as much fun as he is right now. he was at his boyhood club, but he was in a bad situation at his boyhood club, which was almost worse, right?

and how tough that is, to be hoping for the fairy tale ending and thenjust being in a tactically wrong situation with a manager you're not clicking with, and then you come here and you have the polar opposite of that. do you feel like you maybe had fallen out a little bit of love with the game? no. i think i've always loved playing. obviously, the time at everton last season was a bit frustrating at times. obviously, different managers, playing different positions. disappointed with the way it ended. but the way that ended has opened a new chapterfor me here, and i'm really enjoying it. when he came — i think it was his third game or maybe even his second game — i looked out there and he was laughing, he was smiling, he was laughing with another player. and i don't see that much in the premiership. i don't see a lot of smiles on players' faces during the game, and i think that's great. i don't want to underestimate his influence on, you know, our team and the relevance of our team right now in the city.

we've been here a long time and we've created a pretty loyal fan base that we're sending home happy. and there's a really good buzz about this team, and he's certainly been the catalyst for that. plenty of people... we've seen larson and beckham and henry come over here and do it. and in a four—month break, they've gone back, trained with clubs in the premier league, played for the clubs back in europe. would that be something you might look at? no. you want a break? it wouldn't be fair to my children. also, obviously the people here now. i couldn't take them out for a few months, come back... 123, united. the decision i made was to come play for dc, and that's who i'm fully committed to and...

we want to help each other. you can create great moments of history. and we're on the right step to doing that. good evening. not much way of cell phone the forecast. —— snowfall the forecast. none at all this week. sunny spells, but there will be a bit of frost at times and if you are on the move, be wary. out there today, it's been pretty damp for england and wales. that rain fizzling across the midlands and east anglia. very mild. elsewhere, clearing skies. northern ireland and western scotland in the eastern wales, west midlands, these are the areas prone to fog forming and sticking around tomorrow. most of

the country having a dry day, bright day, sunshine after that frosty start. staying mild towards the southwest. into the big day itself, though, again, some fog around across some southern though, again, some fog around across some southern and eastern areas. mostly dry. there will be a little bit of patchy drizzle in the west. a mild christmas day. foremost, temperatures in single figures. i will have more, though, throughout the evening. goodbye for now. this is bbc news. the headlines at 7pm: a tsunami, triggered by an erupting volcano, hits indonesia causing widespread devastation. more than 220 people are dead and more than 800 injured. emergency services are battling to save the injured. eyewitnesses describe scenes of chaos after waves struck at night. over here, an image that gives you a sense of the power of the waves. these cars, i'm told, were parked on the other side of the road and have been pushed into each other, on top of what was a holiday villa.

sussex police are examining a damaged drone found near the perimeter fence of gatwick airport, as two people arrested on friday are released without charge. uk homelessness reaches a record high, according to the charity crisis.