Nathaniel Clyne has revealed he spent his early football days operating as a striker.

The Liverpool defender has emerged as one of the best right-backs in the Premier League over the past few years but it could have been a different story if he followed the path of one of his childhood heroes from Chelsea.

"Ideally I wanted to be a striker. I liked playing up front and scoring goals," he told the Reds' official website.

"But I always had this hunger in me to run after people and get the ball back and I was really good at it so they decided I was better off as a defender.

"Back in the day I used to like Gianfranco Zola. He was a top player. I liked him because he was small and I was small. I'm still small now."