The Aston Villa captain, Fabian Delph, hopes Christian Benteke will remain at the club next season but has admitted he would never attempt to dissuade a team-mate from moving on “if they have a chance to better themselves”.
Benteke’s revival since Tim Sherwood was appointed manager in February was key to Villa’s Premier League survival and the club’s chief executive, Tom Fox, has since indicated they will offer the Belgium forward a new contract this summer. His current deal includes a release clause set at £32.5m and Liverpool are understood to be interested in securing the striker with Tottenham Hotspur also monitoring his situation.
Asked about the potential departure of a player who scored 12 goals in his last 13 appearances for Villa, Delph said: “It would have a big effect. He is a great player, world-class in my opinion, and a good lad to have around as well. It would be a big loss because he scores a lot of goals. But I wouldn’t try to convince anybody to stay. Everyone is entitled to make their own decisions. If they have a chance to move on and better themselves, I can’t tell them not to do that. If they want to commit themselves to the club and stay, then happy days, but it is down to that individual.”
Villa ended the season just above the bottom three and, despite the club being up for sale, retain ambitions under Sherwood to avoid experiencing such discomfort again. Yet, while the 4-0 defeat by Arsenal in the FA Cup final at the end of May dampened the sense of optimism going into the summer break, Delph, who had signed a new four-and-a-half-year contract in January, described criticism of their performance at Wembley that day as “harsh” given the calibre of their opponents.
“Straight after the game people were disappointed but it was only for a split-second,” he said. “It’s out of our system now. It was an achievement for us to get to that final. We’d been struggling all season, a tough year of ups and downs with the change of manager in there too, but for us it was about staying in the Premier League. We did that and to play in an FA Cup final was a huge achievement for me and the rest of the boys. We might not get there again in our careers, so we were pretty happy about getting in the final.
“But we came up short because we played against a real quality team – they’ve got internationals all over the pitch – on one of their better days, so I’m not ashamed to say we got beaten on the day. They were the better team and they deserved to win. If there is any criticism of us, that would be a bit harsh. We gave everything we had but it was probably the best I saw Arsenal perform last season.”
