Aston Villa centre-half John Terry has said he continues to have a ‘hunger’ for football despite ongoing speculation about his future come the summer and he’s hoping that we can secure promotion so he can make a quick decision ahead of next season.
Talksport carry our skipper’s latest words about his future and they will be of interest to Villans given the ongoing speculation surrounding whether or not he’s ready to hang up his boots and/or move into the world of coaching as he looks at his career further down the line.
🗣️"I still have the appetite and hunger for sure."https://t.co/VLPYvNdYqt
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) April 24, 2018
Manager Steve Bruce has already spoken about his openness to bringing Terry into our coaching set up and allowing him to continue playing should he decide his future is with us, and it appears Terry hasn’t necessarily dismissed that idea.
“I still have the appetite and hunger for sure. I just want to get this season finished. My aim at the start of the season was to get us up, whether that was automatic or via the play-offs. One last push and hopefully we can go out with a bang and make it an easy decision at the end.”
Terry went on to say that obviously, Chelsea remain ‘his club’ given his career association with them, but he had nothing but praise for how he’d been received at Villa by the fans. Stating he’d given us his ‘all’ he described the fanbase as being ‘superb’ and he thanked them for welcoming him with ‘open arms’.
“It has been a good combination and worked well for both, I feel. It’s been an incredible journey so far. It is one I have thoroughly enjoyed. I certainly the made the right decision in the summer. I have really enjoyed it – they are a great bunch of lads, the manager has been superb with me, and the fans as well have been excellent.”
He picked out the away fans for particular acknowledgement given their efforts on their travels and he restated that Villa ‘deserves’ to be back in the Premier League so, for now, that’s his only focus.
It’s not an unequivocal ‘I’m staying’ statement from the former England man but it’s about as close as we can get at this stage I would think. Some will think with his words about not wanting to face Chelsea that avoiding promotion would strengthen our position, but as has been said many times, Terry won’t be looking to play every game in a campaign so for a start he can take Chelsea clashes off if he felt he needed to, and use that time to recover further.
The last time I saw the question asked nobody had an issue with that.
“One last push and hopefully we can go out with a bang and make it an easy decision at the end.”
To me that reads as he’s more than onboard with staying should we go up.
