Former Aston Villa player Gabby Agbonlahor has been speaking about his career on the Ben Heath Podcast.
The footballer turned pundit appeared on the podcast to discuss a range of topics, including Jack Grealish, England and his drinking and partying during his playing days.
The striker came through the academy at the Villa Park club before amassing 391 appearances for his boyhood team, according to Transfermarkt.
The only time Agbonlahor spent away from Villa was two short loan spells early in his career, one at Watford and the other at Sheffield Wednesday.
Still only 37, one point of interest discussed in his podcast appearance was his decision to retire at just 32-years-old.
Gabby Agbonlahor cites body being ‘finished’ as reason for early retirement
Agbonlahor made the decision to retire at the end of the 2017/18 season, with Villa having missed out on promotion to the Premier League via the play-offs and his contract expiring.
This, despite pleas from then-manager Steve Bruce, who wanted the player capped three times by England to sign an extension.
Agbonlahor described his relationship with Bruce, before explaining why he made the decision to retire so young, as he said: “My last year at Villa, I mean I loved Steve Bruce, he was amazing.”
“I loved him, he loved me but my body just wasn’t the same. As much as he wanted me to get a new deal at Villa, he wanted me to keep playing but my body was just finished. I think I had jäger bombs leaking out of it from ten years ago.”
The TalkSPORT pundit added: “I was just injured, I was pulling my calf in training…I never pull my calf in training. I was pulling my calf in places where I didn’t know it was part of your calf.
“Doing the runs and the younger lads are just running rings around you. You just know, and I knew then.”
Agbonlahor’s Aston Villa career in numbers
As mentioned, Agbonlahor made almost 400 appearances for The Villans across a 12-year period.
The attacker has played the second most league games for Villa in the Premier League era, with his 322 appearances 42 short of Gareth Barry.
He is Villa’s record Premier League goalscorer too, having fired 74 top flight goals. Current striker Ollie Watkins may well top this in the not too distant future given his current scoring rate, though, as he is only 15 goals off of Agbonlahor.
In total, the lighting-fast striker scored 86 goals for the club, as well as providing a further 57 assists and played in some brilliant Villa sides, particularly under Martin O’Neil.
