Chris Brunt has all-but announced that he will be leaving West Brom at the end of this season after a severe lack of first-team football under Slaven Bilic.
Speaking to The Birmingham Mail, the former Northern Ireland international revealed that he doesn’t expect to be with the Hawthorns side next season after falling to the bench for the majority of the season as the likes of Matheus Pereira, Grady Diangana and Callum Robinson taking a firm grip on the attacking-wide positions in the starting XI.
Brunt was close to a January transfer to Stoke City where he would have been reunited with Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill. But as a report from The Stoke Sentinel reveals, a late move to the Potters broke down in the final days of the window, and the West Brom veteran is ready to end his 13-year stay with the Baggies.
Should Chris Brunt retire from football this season?YesNo |
The club captain said on his West Brom future: “Obviously I don’t overly expect to be at West Brom next season based on this season but you know strange things happen in football. It’s frustrating not playing but when the teams are winning games you can’t really argue.
“The manager has made a lot of decisions this year and 99% of them have worked out well for the team and the football club. From a personal point of view, I want to play as much as I can and I know I don’t have that many more years left in me and you do want to play as much football as you can.”
It comes as no surprise that Brunt already has one eye on the exit door, with the attacker playing just 38 minutes of league football all season as stats from WhoScored show. And with the Baggies looking likely to clinch automatic promotion this year, the former Sheffield Wednesday star will almost certainly be surplus to requirements in the Premier League.
It will be a bittersweet way to send off a genuine bonafide legend of the club, and for West Brom supporters, they know it will be best for Brunt to be able to play the final years of his career at a club where he will likely play first-team football regularly.
