Former Manchester City striker Jo has spoken of Robinho's introduction to Premier League football.

Robinho seemed to have had misgivings about English football from the very beginning, judging by a story Jo has told to ESPN Brasil.

“In Robinho's debut against Portsmouth in 2008 I scored my first goal with Manchester City's shirt, but this game had a really funny story before," said Jo, who also revealed that Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic were his toughest opponents in England.

“We were positioned in the tunnel and their defence was Sylvain Distin and Sol Campbell, one of the midfielders was Bouba Diop, and there was Peter Crouch in the attack. It was almost a team only of giants.

“Then Robinho looked at the guys and said to me, 'F***, Jô, are we going to play rugby? Look at the size of the guys' (laughs). I just replied: 'Yes, Robinho, welcome to the English League!"