Aston Villa midfielder Glenn Whelan has lifted the lid on his exit from the club as he reveals a journalist was the first person to tell him he was being released.
The Republic of Ireland veteran was confirmed by the club to be one of a number of players who would not be seeing their contracts renewed this summer, leaving him as a free agent following the Villans’ promotion to the Premier League.
Revealing how he found out his time was coming to an end, it was the surprise figure of a journalist who let him know, with manager Dean Smith having left a voice mail asking him to call back.
He told the Express and Star: “There was only one disappointment for me. I went away on the Tuesday with the family and when I landed back in here I had two missed calls, one from a journalist saying I’d been released and one from the manager to give him a call.
“From that point of view it was disappointing, but something I expected to be honest. To be released wasn’t a surprise, obviously what stage I’m at in my career and where Aston Villa want to go.”
Opinion
Finding out via a journalist is not the way you want your career at a club to come to an end but that is sometimes how the dice is rolled. It seems to be bad luck, rather than any cold heartedness from Dean Smith, that this was the way the dice were rolled for Whelan and he has been in the game long enough to know there was no ill intentions from Villa. As he says, he sensed that he would not be making up part of the Villans’ squad in the top flight, with their ambitions clearly set higher than the midfielder’s levels. You can be sure that Smith will not be too happy that the information regarding Whelan’s departure was leaked before he got a hold of his player but there was probably little he could do to prevent things turning out the way they have. Everyone now knows where they stand and it will be interesting to see where both parties end up this summer – Whelan looking for a new club, Villa looking for new talent.