Nicky Shorey today insisted he has no regrets over signing for Villa as he prepared to help Albion’s bid to leapfrog his old club.

The Baggies could climb above their neighbours with victory in tomorrow’s Hawthorns derby — a prospect Shorey admits he did not foresee “in a million years” when he switched clubs last summer. But, as he prepared for a reunion with his former team-mates, Shorey still believes he was right to join the Villans despite his nightmare spell at the club.

He started just 22 League matches in a two-year spell at Villa Park that began with him pushing for an England place but ended with him marginalised by then-manager Martin O’Neill.

Shorey said: “It would be quite easy to say I regret it just because I went there and it didn’t work out.

“But I learned a lot and met a lot of different people who I call friends.

“I think you just have to take every experience as it comes, whether it’s a good one or a bad one, and take the best out of it.

“Coming from Reading, where I was playing all the time, maybe if I’d gone somewhere else where I was playing I wouldn’t have learned what I did from being on the other side of it.

“In my further career, if I do go into coaching, that is something good to learn from. I was at Reading for a long time so I saw what other people do and how they work.

“Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

“At Reading I had an unbelievable manager in Steve Coppell and I think I probably appreciated that a more after I left.

“Going somewhere where you’re not playing, after playing week in, week out, shows you the other side of things and you have a bit more respect for the lads who aren’t in the team.

“You’ve got to try to make everyone feel part of it because they will be needed throughout the season.

“The gaffer here is good at that. At Villa I felt quite isolated because,  for whatever reason, it just wasn’t happening.

“The gaffer here makes you feel part of it, which is important.”

Shorey admits, however, that he feared his nightmare was becoming a recurring one when he found himself sidelined from the Baggies’ starting line-up earlier this season by Roberto Di Matteo.

The experienced left him frustrated and confused, but Shorey insists he never felt as low at The Hawthorns as he had at Villa Park.

“The whole point of leaving Villa was to seek first-team football and there was a sense of ‘here we go again’,” he said. “I left Villa to come here and play and it was was all happening again.
“I got a bit down but you have to keep going and anyone you ask would tell you I got my head down and worked hard. I believed I would get another chance.

“Sometimes you don’t, no matter what you do, and that’s just the way it is. But I tried to learn from my experience at Villa. It’s definitely stood me in good stead.

“To be fair, the gaffer then did make everyone feel part of it. He had his own ways of going about things and he was quite quiet.

“As an experienced player, what you want is someone to talk to you a bit more and that’s the only thing I didn’t feel was quite right.

“But he was more than friendly and made sure everyone was part of it. I haven’t got anything bad to say about him in that sense.”

Having quit Villa for Albion, Shorey braced himself for the predictable battle against relegation with Di Matteo’s newly-promoted side. And he never dreamed that, with four games left, the Baggies would be all-but safe, on 40 points and with a realistic chance of ending the season above his old side.

“I didn’t think that in a million years, not with the quality they’ve got,” he said. “It hasn’t gone for them this season and that’s what happens sometimes.

“But they’re showing now they have got top quality players and they can cause anyone damage.”

Shorey’s departure from Villa came, ironically, on the same day that O’Neill stunned the club by resigning as manager just days before the start of the season.

And the man who he froze out of his side was not entirely shocked to see chaos break out as he was completing the formalities of his £1.5m transfer to The Hawthorns.

“It did and it didn’t surprise me,” he said. “I was there in the last few days and you could tell something wasn’t quite right.”

Shorey now takes on his former side with the Baggies looking to end the season above them. And he is expecting a red-hot atmosphere at The Hawthorns tomorrow.

“It’s a tough one for the players because all you’re trying to do is not get involved and concentrate on the game,” he said.

“But you do notice a difference in atmosphere in those games. You go in fully aware it’s a big one for the fans and it maybe a little bit more spicy than usual. For me, it’s just another game and it’s important to get the points we need.”

And Shorey believes Albion’s 26-year, 17-match wait for a victory over their neighbours will count for little tomorrow.

“Records are there to be broken — why not this weekend?” he said.