With Aston Villa fans already knowing that Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Josh Onomah would be returning to his parent club with the expiry of his loan spell, the big news, of course, this week was the departure of John Terry with his 12-month option not kicking in owing to our failure to gain promotion.
Whilst there may be other reasons on the Terry front, it’s not too much of a stretch to blame Financial Fair Play and the position we now find ourselves in on that score and having to cut our cloth accordingly as spending for success just didn’t work.
With confirmation from both players about their departures, each has released a statement on the Official Site (and Here) talking up their time at B6 even if it ended in disappointment.
“I’m very proud to have had the opportunity to play and captain this great and huge club. I have given my everything this year both on and off the pitch and I’m still hurting today that we never managed to get back to the Premier League, where this club 100% belongs.”
Terry goes on to credit his time with Steve Bruce, citing him as ‘instrumental’ in his decision to join us to begin with and also praised him for learning even more about the game under his charge.
Thanking his colleagues, club staff and owner Dr Tony Xia it was onto the fans.
“Finally, a special thank you to the Villa supporters who have supported us both home and away in their thousands, up and down the country and have been amazing to me on a personal level. Villa will always have a place in my heart and I will look back on my time here and think about how close we were to reaching our goal.”
“Things like this happen in football and you've just got to bounce back and learn from it"@Joshuaonomah10 reflects on his loan spell at the club 👉 https://t.co/gju23Wt8os #AVFC pic.twitter.com/xrfLsyiNME
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) May 31, 2018
Moving onto Onomah, he described the Play-Off Final as being ‘heartbreaking’ but he still felt his stay with us had been ‘excellent’.
“Things like this happen in football and you’ve just got to bounce back and learn from it. We kept our heads up and credit to the fans for cheering us on all the way to the final whistle. The experience here at Aston Villa has been excellent. I’ve learned a lot.”
He added about the dressing room.
“Right from the get-go, the first day I came in, the lads have made me feel welcome. What you saw on the pitch after the final whistle is what we are as players. We’re close, we get on well and there’s no little groups, everyone’s together. It was just so disappointing that we lost.”
Responding to those statements, on a Terry front.
Can you stop breaking my heart thanks
— Dave (@Dave_1874) May 31, 2018
Will always remember you as a great leader of mean for us JT and a legend, thanks for giving us everything sad to see you go
— British Clive (@BritishBuIIdog) May 31, 2018
John Terry has been a class act for us. Travelling with the team when injured to be part of it. Doing extra training and spending time with the younger players and bringing the dressing room together. Total respect for him. UTV
— Murray Tonry (@murray_tonry) May 31, 2018
JT bought a level of professionalism to Villa that was lacking in the seasons leading up to relegation. If a small part of this example is transferred to the team then regardless of the playoff result, it is a good thing. For me he was class
— Chris Warren (@Fenrison) May 31, 2018
As for Onomah, with mixed performances, responses were mixed in his direction – but even then it’s fair to say Terry attracted a number of comments akin to ‘move on, let’s deal with the future and not the past now’.
The whole Media team need to have a rethink. Driving tanks, in-car 'entertainment', stare-offs and other guff are trivial distractions. Personally, I'd rather (just) hear about tickets, player updates, team selection and the manager's presser, etc. Y'know, football things.
— jjosephstevens (@jimpanzee666) May 31, 2018
He didn’t exactly set the world alight during his time at VP
— Andrew Horton (@villandrew) May 31, 2018
Easy to say when he’s able to just walk away from the mess.
— Phil Roberts (@iamVilla) May 31, 2018
Cheers JT. Bye.
Let's move on, he was great considering but lets not dwell on him, he was no Paul McGrath.— Billy! (@Billy7AVFC) May 31, 2018
Can you just not tweet for a few days? It still hurts
— Pramit (@pramit177) May 31, 2018
With the only news coming out of the club at the minute classed as ‘bad’ to varying degrees fans are certainly struggling to find a silver lining at the moment, so with chief executive officer Keith Wyness saying we had two plans in place we need to see that second plan start coming to fruition quickly to raise spirits and give some clarity.
