Woodgate’s career at risk, is this the right time for him to retire?
Tottenham’s manager, Harry Redknapp has reportedly admitted to the fact that he may have no choice but to leave Jonathan Woodgate out of the twenty five man squad list he is looking to submit, for the registration of his team for the Premier League, in the month of August. It doesn’t look like the centre back would be included in the revised list which lets you change three players, in January.
Woodgate first got injure in Tottenham Hot Spur’s nine goals to one thrashing of Wigan Athletic in November, and hasn’t been featured in a single first team match ever since, and has been constantly flying back and forth between the United States and Australia in order to get a number of surgeries and treatments for his groin.
This didn’t stop the manager, Redknepp from revealing that the thirty year old defender is still a long way off from making a full return to football for the first team. He was recently reported to have said, “It must be really hard for him because he is nowhere near kicking a ball. He has been out for a year and he still has a long way to go. It would be impossible to put him in my 25 at the moment."
"If he does not start playing before the start of the season, he has got no chance. You cannot have somebody in who is never going to play, who is not going to be fit. We will see how we go in January, but he is a long way off now.”
Woodgate has managed to make just three appearances for Tottenham Hot Spurs, following two relatively better seasons at the club. His career stats however are nothing to be proud of.
During the twelve years that he has served teams as a professional football player he has managed to miss an outstanding number of two hundred and thirty five games domestically. His latest groin injury which isn’t very new but seems to be taking forever to heal has sidelined him for what appears to be at least another year of action on the field.
The question that this brings to mind is, that at the grand age of thirty, is it finally time for the injury ridden defender to call it quits and hang up his boots once and for all?
Most people would seem to think that, that is the most obvious thing to do. Since he can’t really provide anything to the team all he will end up doing is permanently injuring himself. That would just be even worse for him on personal terms and for Tottenham who will be forced to pay his medical bills when they could just let him go instead.
Woodgate now has two options in front of him, he could either do the noble thing and hand in his resignation and enjoy a life after retirement, or he could end up being selfish and insisting that he can still carry on, till he is eventually sacked by Tottenham.
It is more than likely that no matter what happens, Woodgate will be leaving the club sooner or later. Even though he hasn’t played as much as he would have liked to, he has still been a fan favorite at Tottenham ever since he joined the club. He scored his first goal for the club against Chelsea in the extra time of the 2008 League Cup final which saw Tottenham go on to lift their first trophy since, 1999. It is moments of magic like this that will have the fans remember him, no matter what he decides to do in the future.
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