Knight plans to add to Villa misery
Tuesday 30th March 2010, 9:20AM BST.
Zat Knight is plotting to heap more misery on his former club Villa and insists he has no regrets about quitting the club for Bolton.
The Trotters defender, who left in a £4million summer move, will be reunited with his former team-mates on Saturday when the sides clash at the Reebok Stadium.
Two-cap England international Knight admits it was a lifetime ambition to play for his boyhood club, but the towering centre-back believes it was time to move on after finding first-team opportunities limited at Villa Park.
He said: “I don’t live in regret. Going to Villa was a dream of mine and I lived it – but now I have moved on. I don’t beat myself up about it. You could say it is stepping stones but that’s football. It isn’t something I look back on and wonder, what if?
“I did it for my own personal reasons.”
While a desperately poor Villa slumped to a 7-1 thumping at the hands of Chelsea at the weekend, Knight’s Trotters were themselves victims of a thrashing at the hands of another one of the Premier League title contenders after falling to a 4-0 defeat to Manchester United.
Bolton’s display drew warm praise from manager Owen Coyle but O’Neill could not muster anything like the same sentiments about Villa’s abysmal display at Chelsea, which all but wrecked their hopes of a top-four finish.
For Knight, it brings a dilemma about how his old club will approach the weekend, given they have Chelsea to face again in the FA Cup semi-final on April 10.
He said: “Knowing Martin O’Neill they will have been in first thing on Monday morning watching the video of every single goal in minute detail.
“It was a big defeat, which could work in two ways for us. They might look at the semi-final now and think it is their best chance of achieving something, and that fourth place is out of their reach.
“That might mean they rest players. Unfortunately for them the semi is against Chelsea again.”
UK Sport
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