| Jamie Carragher exclusive: I want to be Liverpool's manager.. I just hope Fergie's still around to be knocked off his perch
There is one ambition more than any other which drives Jamie Carragher on: "To knock Sir Alex Ferguson off his f****** perch".
To consign Manchester United to a title wilderness, just as Fergie did to Liverpool.
And if he achieves it he doesn't want to be wearing a red shirt with 23 on his back, but a suit and tie.
Because although Carragher is confident he will win the Premier League as a Liverpool player, his real desire is to win it as a manager. And set up a new Anfield dynasty.
"It would be more of an achievement as manager because it would come about through my decisions," says the 30-year-old, talking in his restaurant Cafe Sports England ahead of the launch of his book: Carra My Autobiography.
"It's like the ultimate football man's dream to be better than Ferguson because he is the master.
"I just hope he hangs around long enough to wait for me."
If Carragher's desire to finish his coaching badges and set about the enemy as Liverpool manager comes as a pleasant surprise to Kopites, his motives may not.
The ambition to emulate Anfield's biggest bogeyman is not down to hatred - but respect.
"I've got more respect for Ferguson than anyone else in the game. He's like a Scouser, really.
"He's funny, doesn't mind telling people to f*** off, and he even votes Labour. I love him."
As the most high-profile convert on Merseyside, Carragher is well used to looking clinically at both sides of a tribal divide and telling it like it is.
That is why Evertonians will be shocked to learn how the one-time self-confessed 'Biggest Blue in Bootle' now wants to beat Everton more than any other side.
"Losing the derby is worse than losing any other game. My passion has gone full circle. I was made up on the first day of the season when Blackburn scored that late winner at Goodison. We were getting ready to play Sunderland and it gave me a big lift."
This from the 11-year-old who, when Michael Thomas scored the last-gasp winner at Anfield in 1989 to deny Liverpool the title, celebrated in delirious fashion, applauding lads who scrawled "Thank You Arsenal" on the wall of a Bootle pub.
"I was a total Everton fanatic right through my childhood and teens," says the defender who went on to play over 500 games for Liverpool.
"Everton controlled my life and dominated my thoughts 24/7. I went to the away games, followed them across Europe and in the mid-80s went to Wembley so often it began to feel like Alton Towers.
"When I talk about that Everton team I still say 'we'. Even when I was playing for Liverpool reserves I'd want Everton's first team to win the derby every time."
His change from fanatical Blue to passionate Red was gradual. The more he established himself at Anfield the more he found himself defending Liverpool against Evertonian jibes. But one incident signified the death of his Everton love affair.
In January 1999 after Liverpool had thrown away a lead at Old Trafford and were knocked out of the FA Cup by two late goals, he walked into his local Bootle pub The Chaucer, expecting banter but also sympathy. What he got was laughter and derision. "I was drained and demoralised that day and good mates didn't think twice about treating me like any other 'dirty Kopite'.
"And that did it for me. I couldn't take it any more. People who I thought loved me, were getting off on my misery. The penny dropped. I turned around and walked out.
"They hadn't done anything wrong. They were just being themselves and they're still my mates. But it was over. When I walked out of that pub I turned my back on Everton for good."
Any doubts he may have had about making the wrong decision vanished in the increasingly ugly atmosphere of the Merseyside derbies when mates like Steven Gerrard and Robbie Fowler were subjected to loud personal abuse.
"I hate what they sing about Steven and his family.
"It's disgusting and goes way beyond the kind of banter that's acceptable in life, not just football.
Robbie suffered the same type of scandalous taunts which really hurt him and his family. I'm not saying Liverpool fans are blameless because they're not. They dish out abuse during games with our rivals too. But it ends when the game ends.
"Evertonians spread the lies around the streets of Liverpool and chant them whether they're playing us, Reading or Portsmouth.
"I even hear it on the telly when they're playing away in Europe and I think that could be my family they're singing about."
Carragher has more reason than most players to demand respect for the family. When his mother Paula was pregnant with him, she was told he had spina bifida and given the option of an abortion.
The staunch Catholic woman refused, and the love she showed still moves Jamie deeply today.
"She was willing to bring up a disabled child. She was prepared to sacrifice her life for me. I owe everything I've ever done in the past 30 years to that decision."
It turned out he did not have spina bifida but a condition called gastroschisis, and was born with his bowels outside his stomach (it's why he has a big scar there and no belly button) and spent his first six weeks battling for survival in hospital.
And he has never stopped battling since. As a kid his hatred of giving in and his all-out desire to succeed became a problem. He was a better player than everyone around him and he would let them know.
"I couldn't understand or accept that others weren't as good and I couldn't get off their backs. I was always getting dragged aside by managers and told to treat my team-mates better. It still happens today. Rafa often pulls me up about being too harsh on other players.
"I've had to send a text message to Pepe Reina apologising for what I'd said during a game. I say things to players and afterwards think 'what have I done?' And sometimes after I've had a stand-up row I think 'Oh God, do they hate me?' "But I can't let people around me switch off. Having said that, if someone tells me what to do on the pitch there's a good chance they'll get told to f*** off. That's my job," he says, laughing.
It may surprise those familiar with Carragher's career statistics to learn that as a teenager he was a prolific striker who played up front for England schoolboys and started there for the reserves at Anfield.
During the run towards FA Youth Cup glory in 1996 he dropped into midfield then centre-back, his natural position. "Compared to John Terry, Rio Ferdinand or Ledley King, I'm not that big, quick or strong. It's my reading of the game that'smy biggest strength. I love to pull the strings, drive everyone on." If Gerrard is the heart of Liverpool, Carragher is its soul.
He epitomises the Scouse spirit in a team packed with foreigners. And although he believes the foreign invasion has benefited English club football, he feels it has gone too far.
"There's definitely too many foreigners in the game. What's the point of spending all this money on the academies if we're not pushing local kids through? Liverpool FC is our club. It's a big part of our city and you've got to give young Scousers with aspirations the chance to succeed.
"It's not just football. I've got two brothers who find it hard to work in Liverpool in this Capital of Culture year. One of the reasons is we've made it too easy for foreigners to come here and take the jobs."
His passion for his city and his people is immense. "If I was given the choice between winning the World Cup with England or doing what we did in Istanbul, I'd take Istanbul simply because I know how much it meant to Liverpool.
"People have told me that we gave them the greatest night of their lives and if they died next week they'd die happy. That's some thought."
He married Nicola, his Bootle childhood sweetheart, three years ago and they have two kids James, 5, and Mia, 4. Nicola, three years younger than Jamie, was his first and only girlfriend, and he finally plucked up the courage to ask her out when he was 18.
His reasoning: "Why chase the rest when you can wait for the best?"
Loyalty is a big word in Carragher's vocabulary. During the frenzy over Gerrard's possible move to Chelsea in 2005, he was asked if he would ever leave for a club bigger than Liverpool.
His response was immediate: "Where's bigger than Liverpool?"
But he is under no illusion about the warped spin many modern fans place on loyalty. The lowest point in his career came in the second season under Gerard Houllier after the French manager brought in centre-backs Sami Hyypia and Stephane Henchoz.
"I'd just been voted Player of the Year but didn't start the season very well and fans were calling for Henchoz to play in my position.
"I thought 'hang on, a few games ago I was your best player'. I was only 21 back then and I struggled to get my head round it.
"It angered me and it took a while to get myself together after that.
"When the fans eventually started singing about dreaming of a team of Carraghers I thought 'you weren't singing that six years ago'.
"I'm under no illusion. No matter what I've done over the years as soon as someone better comes along it'll be 'f*** Carra off'. But that's football.
"People go on about how loyal I am to Liverpool. But it's not a question of loyalty. It's a question of 'where am I going to go from Liverpool?' "We're one of the best teams in the world and I'm playing every week.
"I'm not saying I want to leave Liverpool, but if Liverpool weren't that good and a great team like Real Madrid or Barcelona came in for me I might go, because I've always driven myself to play at the best level I can."
So what does the future hold for Jamie Carragher? "I've got three years left on my contract and I want to be playing 50 games a season.
"There's competition for my place and I'm prepared to fight for that because I've been fighting all my life.
"There will always be technically better players around than me, but no-one will be able to match my passion or drive. I'll be fighting for another contract after this one and I'll be happy then to accept 25 games a season."
And if, after that, Fergie is still sitting on his perch, he had better watch out.
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