No longer the face – or body – of Calvin Klein’s underwear billboards, Freddie Ljungberg acknowledges his relief. “I was never embarrassed by the pictures or the fact that other people would look at them. I just didn’t like looking at them myself,” he explains. “I remember sitting outside a little cafe on the Fulham Road, having breakfast one morning, and a double-decker bus with a giant poster of the ad on the side of it stopped just yards away. I had to get up and go to the toilet. The same thing when a cab driver took me past the giant billboard in [New York’s] Times Square. I was looking through my fingers and saying, ‘Oh no’. I always knew where the Selfridges stores were with the posters in the windows, so I didn’t drive or walk down those streets. After a while I got used to it, and I got a great reaction from people, but to see yourself like that – I don’t know if daunting is the way to describe it, but I did feel embarrassed sometimes.”

Bashfulness is not an emotion readily associated with the 30-year-old Swede, who cuts a flamboyant figure on the field and off. In last month’s issue of Esquire he was listed among the 20 best-dressed men in the world. He has posed for the cover of gay magazines while maintaining in their pages that he is “not gay [and] if I was, I would just say I was and it wouldn’t bother me”. He enjoys musicals, theatre, art, interior design and fashion, and his sartorial taste could evolve into his own designer label one day.

“My brother works in fashion and I have a history in design, but I don’t know if a second career for me will be in the form of clothes or not,” he says. “For instance, I designed the interior of my house [in Hampstead] and I find it interesting to see how it should be done. Something that I think is beautiful is to mix modern things with old to see if it works.

“When I look in the wardrobe I don’t look for the most expensive suit or the flashiest clothes. I mix and match different things to get the feel right for what I wear. To me, this is fashion. Anything goes, as long as I think it looks good. I don’t know if this will be a career for me, but you need to think about what you will do after football.”

For now, football is the most vital element of his eclectic life and his £3m transfer from Arsenal to West Ham, he maintains, is affirmation that after two Premier League title triumphs and three in the FA Cup, his ambition still burns brightly. One might wonder how his departure from a club with a track record for challenging for and winning the biggest prizes demonstrates a continued desire for success, especially when he joined a club that barely maintained its Premier League status only four months ago. Robin van Persie, his former Arsenal teammate, described some of Ljungberg’s reasons for leaving, articulated on his arrival at Upton Park – the departure of Thierry Henry and the fact that most of the big players from their unbeaten season in 2003-4 are now gone – as “a bit weak”.

Ljungberg, however, is encouraged by West Ham’s strong start to the season and by successive 3-0 victories over Reading and Middlesbrough. Over the four years he has committed himself to his new club, he is convinced his decision will be vindicated.

“It was a very tough decision to leave Arsenal,” he admits. “I have only ever had two clubs: Halmstads in Sweden, the club I joined when I was five; and Arsenal, where I’ve been for most of my adult life. I had a great relationship with the Arsenal fans, and the manager [Arsène Wenger] wanted me to stay. In my time at Highbury and in the Emirates stadium we won everything, everything except the European Cup, and in this we came so close. We played brilliantly in that final [in 2006 against Barcelona] and believed we would win, but it wasn’t to be, and that’s sad.

“But what we always had at Arsenal was a great belief and understanding that it doesn’t matter that you were man of the match last week. Today is a new game and you need to give 100% in every game. Consistency is the key. For me, I had spent nine years and I really did not think about leaving.” Ljungberg says he turned down offers from clubs here and overseas, but when West Ham manager Alan Curbishley and Eggert Magnusson (the former executive chairman who relinquished power to club owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson last week) spoke to him about their ambition for the team and the rebuilding they had planned, “I thought, ‘Maybe it is time for a change in my life’. This is my 10th year in London and I feel a bit like a Londoner, but I also felt like I wanted a new kick, and this was it.

“To be part of the rebuilding of a team and to see where it will go is inspiring. West Ham has a great history, with its players having been such an important part of England’s World Cup-winning team in 1966. Since I’ve been in England, the club has brought through so many great young players before letting them go to big clubs like Chelsea and Manchester United. Now we want to keep those players and bring in more to add strength and quality and build a big team. When they asked me to be part of this, it appealed to me. It’s not unrealistic to say that we want to qualify for Europe this season. This is what we’re aiming for and we have a chance.”

The return from injury of striker Dean Ashton and his developing partnership with Craig Bellamy, whom Curbishley compared last week to Paolo Di Canio, along with the resurgence in form of Lee Bowyer and Matthew Etherington, have been factors behind West Ham’s success so far, success they will aim to build on with victory over Newcastle today. But the main man is likely to be a player whom Wenger identified as “a fighter with the basic attitude of a champion”, an attitude that Ljungberg intends to instil in his new surroundings.

“I’m a very bad loser, I always have been. I used to get angry and swear a lot. I didn’t like to lose games. I have a picture of myself when I was very young. We played a county final and in extra time I went through a lot of players until it was just me and the goalie, but somebody kicked me from behind. It was a clear penalty. I was down on the ground, but the referee didn’t give it. The goalie got the ball, threw it out and his team broke away and scored. I was so angry that I took off my boot, put it in my mouth and started chewing on it. This is the picture that one of the player’s mums took and gave to me years later. Of course I laugh at it now, but I still understand that if you don’t get upset by losing, something is wrong.”

Inside track

- The past two matches between the sides at St James’ Park have been draws. West Ham’s last victory there was a 3-0 win in October 1998

- In the past 14 matches between Newcastle and West Ham there have been 43 goals. Newcastle are unbeaten in seven Premier League matches against the Hammers

- Referee Mike Riley has awarded four penalties and 16 yellow cards in fi ve matches this season. The past four matches between the sides produced 21 yellow cards and one red