sergeant pepper wrote:
I'm taking a different approach on it and i guess it's all about the individual and what they want.
Bring prodded and poked for the next 24 months with little to no game time can't be good. These treatments, like most physiotherapy, will probably be quite painful. He might be in daily pain with no real upside (especially if it's degenerative).
You hear plenty of stories about how difficult players find it when they get long term injuries - well this has to be the worst situation of all of these imo.
Absolutely agree it must be tough for him but I just think him getting paid to take physio, to do light training and not play is surely preferential to walking away with less money than the full value of his contract, still have to deal with pain, still need physio, an operation etc but all on his own time and money.
Ultimately I think everyone hopes he does decide to retire but from his POV I’m sure he will hold out for the absolute maximum he is due. It may just be that to get that he stays around the club for the full length of his deal and whilst that won’t be good news for us, he’s entitled to do so.
Fingers crossed a good outcome is reached for all parties. One thing I’m convinced of is that his time as a top level player is over. We may get him to a level where he’s as good as say Tony Clubb (and that may take an operation and months out of the game) but there’s no chance it’s going beyond that.