Published On: Sat, Mar 6th, 2010

Shaun Wright-Phillips Wants To Stay at Manchester City Forever

Shaun Wright-Phillips wants a new contract at Manchester City that will bind him to the club for the rest of his career, according to The Sun.

Wright-Phillips is said to be angling for a five-year deal worth £75,000 per week, although he claims that his first priority is the club and not money.

“No way is this a question of money. It’s just that I love it at City and want to stay here for ever. Remember I left this club before but jumped at the chance to come back ‘home’. I definitely don’t want to leave again. I want to spend the rest of my life here – and I don’t just mean my playing days.” He said

“Yes, when the time comes for me to hang up my boots, I would love to stay and work with the City coaching staff. It would be great to give something back like that. To work with the kids and help them come through from the Academy to the first team would be brilliant.”

However, it appears that Wright-Phillips’ obvious enthusiasm is not being returned by club directors Garry Cook and Brian Marwood, the men in charge of the negotiation process.

Indeed, the pair’s attitude drew a scathing attack from Ian Wright – the player’s father – earlier this week, with the Arsenal legend accusing them of ‘mugging off’ his son.

Wright-Phillips himself admits to being totally nonplussed by the whole situation.

“I try not to get personally involved because I just want to concentrate on giving 110 per cent for City to make sure we get that fourth place in the Premier League. But it does hurt. It is disappointing. And I repeat, it’s nothing to do with money or me being greedy.” He continued.

“One thing that I definitely don’t want to do is get into how much other players earn at this football club.

“Obviously, I know there are players here who earn more than twice what I do. But that’s not the issue for me. This is not about my bank account, it’s about where I want to be and doing what I want to do.

“So I do find the club’s reluctance now even to talk about a new contract pretty hard to understand.

“The situation is this. I have two seasons left on my current deal and I don’t want to get into a scenario where that runs down and down and still nothing is sorted. That just leads to uncertainty and confusion on both sides.

“So from my point of view, it’s very straightforward. It’s all to do with staying at a club I love and where the fans love me. These City fans made me and I’ll always be in their debt for that. I feel like I owe them the rest of my career.

“So I’ll put pen to paper on a five-year deal right now, longer if they want. Quite simply, I want to play at City for the rest of my life.

“At one stage I was very confident that would happen. It looked like everything would be sorted when Mark Hughes was in charge. He was keen to agree a new deal. But since he left, there has been nothing.

“OK, it has been hard because of the new manager coming in. There have been a lot of changes in a short space of time.

“There were obviously other things they had to deal with, other matters more pressing.

“But I can’t work out why there’s still a delay, unless they don’t want me and are trying to get me out.”

Tagged with: Manchester CityShaun Wright-Phillips

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