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 and you don't start demanding things. it's not a big issue, to be honest. again, it'sjust wayne. he just wants to play his football. he doesn't care about all those things. he cares about the team—mates and being in a good situation but not 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 on what the best avenue to take is really. and i felt at the time this was the best 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, it probably would have been too late to try and start at a later age. i think 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 difficult. to have a bit more space and more time to enjoy with your family, which is something that i like. you don't have the tabloids after you.

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 pleasant change for him. everyone knows you back home and you do have to plan more than you would. you can pick the kids up from school, be a bit spontaneous and go and do whatever the kids want to do rather than sometimes doing what you think is the easiest thing to do. you're not a zlatan, you're not a showy person, you don't have a big ego. but you almost get airdropped midseason into a club. that's a difficult thing to negotiate. 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... playing in that heat, it was fine, i adjusted really well to it. we went on a good run of winning games and once the team saw that you were good enough to win games against the better teams in the league also, it gave the team a lot of confidence and would be playing for the last two months now. was it important for you to let the fans and 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 particularly the owners and the manager, they knew from speaking to me that wasn't the case. and you have people who compare you to other players who came over here and have not done as well. i was worried that this was another cash grab that he would come here and make some money and,

"see you later" and that was it. we're in last place so it could not have gotten much worse. it was midseason, you drop a superstar into a club, a league he's never played in, players he has never played with. it is not going to work right away or at least that'd what everybody expected. you have a corner at the end of the game. our goalie comes out. they need three points out of this match, one point won't do it. but to take a loss in this situation would be gutting. shaking my head saying we're done. it comes out well, johnson's running on it. he is one of the players that other players dislike off the pitch. but for fans, you can imagine how we feel about him. our defence is up in the box. will they take it away from us?

will this be it? then i see this streak going across the field. i was thinking that is great, now our defence can get back. you just think at least it's done. then all of a sudden, it is served up field. he lashes this 40 yard crossfield ball right on the head of a 5—3 attack. i think his header actually gets lost for the size of him to get up so high and the given squirrel, it was a great header. it was a big moment to go from following and win the game, and really give us the belief that we could go on and make the playoffs. that's a type of moment you don't need to hammer home to your team. there were 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 level of everyone on our team. eve ryone's gotten better after he ccme 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 and before games or even halftime and after games. 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 because whoa, we just won the game. 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 at the 20—year—old looking to prove himself. that's kind of the level of effort he was laying out. yeah, the response from

the supporters and other players in the field that everyone has responded to that. i'm not someone that just wants to win, you want to win and perform well. of course, this came from... you want to perform well as a team and no what you are working on in training is what you are achieving on the pitch. the facilities are probably not what he is used to in england. i have seen those training grounds. yeah, this needs some work. you have room to them on a teammate. that must be a new thing for him. yeah, he said he just wants to be another guy on the team and that's the way you are 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 different. i have never really done this work before. but that is part of it, and again, it's not really a big deal to me. but he had a gripe about you, didn't he? he did. i usually like to sleep with my laptop like some form of sitcom, because i like to fall asleep to a type of show. that i have watched before, and i love trashy reality television. what do you think annoyed him about rooming with you? i don't know, i think i would be the perfect roommate. has he imposed music on the locker room yet? a little bit. interesting taste in music. i put on the music i want rather than theirs. it's a little different than what i am used to listening to. a bit ofjames bay. mumford and sons.

it's quite chilled out really. maybe that's the problem. you're too chilled out. what was it like this summer to watch england reached the semi—final in the world cup? the last time i watched england and going to parties, the set up, was when i was 16 and i7. to go back to that and watch as a fan was different than what i had 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, yourformer manager, saying you have left europe too soon, you still have plenty left to give, what would you say to them? yeah, i still feel good of the 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 is exciting, to have a guy come in your team with his resume, but his stature and to be enjoying the game again. when i watched him last year,

it did not 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, which was almost worse. and how tough that is, to be hoping for the fairy tale ending and thenjust being put in the 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 had maybe fallen out a little bit of love with the game? no, i think i've always loved playing and obviously, the time last season was a bit frustrating at times. different managers playing different positions, disappointed with the way it ended. the way that ended, but it opened a new chapterfor me here. i'm enhoying 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 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 beckham and larson come over here and in a four—month break they go back, train with clubs and premier league, play for the clubs back in europe, would that be something you might look at? no. it wouldn't be fair to my children, also obviously the people here. going for a few months, then coming back...

123, united. the decision i made was to play for dc and i'm fully committed to itand... we want to help each other. you can create great moments of history. and we're on the right step to doing that. as 2018 draws to an end, the weather is looking mild and settled, with high pressure in charge. over the weekend we've had quite a lot of cloud. this was sunday afternoon in norfolk. clear spells this evening and tonight, so temperatures dipping but we are due to see some mist and fog patches, especially over southern wales, southern england as well. some clear spells overnight in the east but mostly a frost free,

mild but fairly murky start on monday. monday is new year's eve. the weather is shaping up to be mostly dry and settled. quite a lot of cloud but some sunshine. some rain in the north—west of scotland which may move further south this evening. most of us in double figures on monday. if you have plans to see in the new year, apart from rain over parts of scotland it's looking mostly dry with a fair amount of cloud in the skies. bye, bye. this is bbc news. i'm lukwesa burak. the headlines at 7:00pm. a shipping company awarded a multi—million pound contract to move goods if there's a no—deal brexit has no trading record and no significant assets. the uk and france step upjoint patrols and increase surveillance — to tackle a rise in the number of migrants trying to reach

britain in small boats. violence, and claims of vote rigging, as the polls close in bangladesh's general election. manchester city get back to winning ways with a 3—1win at southampton. that and the rest of the day's sport in sportsday in half an hour.