Gary Cahill Was NOT Forced Out Of Villa

The Sun have an interview with former Villa defender Gary Cahill who in some Villa fans eyes ‘controversially’ was sold to Bolton when he appeared to be a hot prospect for us.

Nice to read the quotes in the red top as well as some more in the Birmingham Mail because Gary shows he has no hard feelings on his departure and that he wasn’t forced out at all.

The 23-year-old has been called in the England squad, as a few in the Villa youth set up expected one day he would be – I spoke with one a few years ago when Gary left and he said they had thought Cahill would be the best of all the youth players breaking through so he was gutted when he left!

Cahill explains in the article he departed because he wanted regular first team football, at the time he couldn’t get that at Villa with Martin Laursen and Olof the bearded wonder Mellberg being the regulars.

He admits, ‘If I had bided my time there, I might have got into the side and carried on playing there — but I chose to move and I’ve not looked back since. It has turned out to be a good decision.’

He also says although Bolton aren’t seen as ‘fashionable’ the new England boss doesn’t seem to worry as long as ‘you’re doing the business and performing well, you’ve always got a chance.’

He then goes on to talk about his England prospects in the report: click here

In the Birmingham Mail when asked about MON not being able to convince him his future lay at Villa, Cahill said: ‘He is a great manager and you would maybe have to ask him that question. But everybody makes mistakes sometimes.’ Adding that there is no animosity between him and MON and ‘He never for one minute pushed me out of the door. It was just a decision I made to go because he couldn’t guarantee me playing week in, week out which is what I needed to do.’

Nice to be able to get that fully cleared up as it was mystifying to some that he was allowed to leave, maybe more could have been done to convince him to stay but if he wanted football week in week out he’d have had to wait at least one more season and sadly it looks like he wasn’t prepared to do so. Shame really because with the injury record of Laursen he would have got his chance!