Despite Montemurro’s impressive track record with Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City in the W-League, he said he was still learning in England.

And with the problems surrounding Australian football in recent times, the 48-year-old said it was difficult to compare the leagues.

“Australia has its limitations, it has geographical issues, there’s a younger club scenario and so on,” Montemurro said.

“Australia’s growing and learning, over here you have clubs that centuries old.  It is the home of football, but they’ve had good and bad times and have learnt from experiences.

“Economically it’s at a different level. The reality is I’ve learnt a lot and I’m learning how the mechanisms one of the world’s biggest clubs works, what their restrictions are and what they need to do and what they need to achieve.

Pepe in his Melbourne Victory days

“Learning about development, learning what is player development. For me it’s an everyday learning and growth in seeing what the best in the world are doing.

“Knowing I’m a guy from the northern suburbs of Melbourne has the opportunity to learn and is competing at this level, I think it’s a great indication of what we can do to be better.

“I watched the W-League grand final which I thought City were good for it. It’s always hard to gauge the W-League in terms of where it’s going and heading due to the fact it’s a short league and you have a massive turnover of players year-in and year-out.

“It needs to find its level of stability somewhere. I don’t know where or how.”