In fairness to him...he probably knew he’d got a niggling injury and he’d come into the game late, therefore he’s taken any opportunity to get as much money as he could.
Depends which way you look at it but I think in his situation we’d have all done the same. He won’t have earned a fraction of what some have got out of the game. He’s had an opportunity to set him and his family up and he’s gone with it.
Think he’s said before as well that his family are still down south. I think being up here has probably played a part in his decision.
It’s got to be so difficult to come to the pro game late and be able to sustain top performance at the highest level. Even without the injuries he’d have struggled to get in the team ahead of Duffy. Seemed like a decent player still and it’s sad that he’s had to call it. Ironically, if he hadn’t have been with us it might have been worth the op if he’d have been somewhere where’d he got more game time.
If I was him, I'd take medical advice obviously, but I'd seriously consider having the op, whether I was planning to carry on playing or not. If it's something mechanical that can be fixed then he's better off having that done now, than later in life. The older you get the more difficult it is to recover from such things.
I don't think he fitted in at United, I think that's got more to do with him not playing than anything else, certainly in the early days anyhow. He was a bit of an "individual" player and I recall Wilder calling some players out (not naming them) for being too much about themselves as individuals and not enough about "team". I suspect he was one of those.
It doesn't seem like he's ever really settled here and if his family have remained down south then, to me, that just doesn't work. It's difficult to sustain it for any length of time and it becomes even more difficult when children come along. Children need a daddy to be at home on a fairly regular basis at least. (In my view they also need a mummy to be at home, on a fairly regular basis as well, but I am rather old-fashioned about such things).
I don't know the guy but he'd obviously got some good skills. If he's made enough to be able to retire from the game, good for him, and I hope he gets his back sorted. If he does that, he might just end up carrying on playing for some team in the south at a lower level.
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