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All good things in this life must pass at some point, and that’s especially true for John Terry’s stint at Aston Villa FC. Terry, a legend in English football, has only agreed a one year deal at Aston Villa that expires at the end of this current season.
But what next for the big man at the back, who is helping Villa charge to promotion? There’s a lot of questions that will face John Terry at the close of the season, questions that he will be delaying until his season with Aston Villa is resolved according to John Percy in The Telegraph.
So what choices does Terry face? Let’s break them down:
Retirement
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Terry’s last game at Chelsea was frankly, a kind of embarrassing jaunt. He deserved a big send off, but it was rather humiliating for Sunderland to have to wait for Terry to leave the pitch in the 26th minute of a league game. Still, fair play.
However, Terry wasn’t done. He joined up with Steve Bruce and Aston Villa for one last hurrah - and if that’s true, it’s likely that John Terry will retire at the end of the season, ideally having helped Aston Villa get back into the Premier League.
Coaching
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One of the big hooks for Villa in the John Terry deal was the chance to work under a friend in Steve Bruce and potentially to learn the ropes - to see if he’s got what it takes to manage a football club down the line. You’d think that Terry, at 37, has already undergone his coaching qualifications and is on that path by default. However, he’d be tutored by Bruce at Aston Villa and have a carved out path for himself at the club with players that seem to adore him. There’s room in the Villa backroom for John Terry, although he does seem destined to link up with Chelsea at some point.
MLS/A-League/India/China
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MLS is absolutely not the retirement league that people refer to it as - but with that being said, the capture of John Terry on a short-term deal would be a massive pull for some, but not all, Major League Soccer sides. There are surely some teams that won’t be able to stop themselves from tabling an offer - and why would John Terry refuse?
You can bet your bottom dollar that Indian and Chinese teams will be making some sort of package for Terry as well - they are probably thinking about it as we speak! And hey - why not? He’d get to star, and he’d get to be the focus.
Aston Villa
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There’s every chance that John Terry could stick with Aston Villa next season. He’s enjoying his footy, and he’s earning a decent wage for doing so at a team that loves him. It’s not exactly Chelsea, but a Villa sell-out offers him his biggest home crowd of his career. If Villa get promoted, he’ll have to think twice about whether he’d want to play against Chelsea in the Premier League, but if Villa don’t go up - he’d have to take a MASSIVE wage cut to stay in the team thanks to financial fair play considerations.
Punditry
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He can’t be worse than Jamie Redknapp and Alan Brazil. There’s simply no way.