‘I’M HERE TO DO ALL I CAN FOR STOKE’ SAYS FLETCHER
DARREN Fletcher doesn’t know if he will be at Stoke City after the January transfer window - but he has vowed to do everything he can for the team while he remains.
The 34-year-old Scot has stepped off the bench in two of the last three games, but has only started four league games so far this season.
Assessing his prospects of remaining beyond January, the former Manchester United midfielder admitted: “Obviously I want to play football and that’s something I’ve not done much of this year.
“But while you’re here, you are playing a valuable part and if it’s not on the pitch, it’s in the dressing room and around the rest of the players, which is what I have been doing.
“I will never shirk that responsibility. I’m always there to help the new players and the younger players as a senior player because that’s the role and people did it for me.
“But when the January transfer window comes, you want to play football and you’ll speak with the club to see what options there are.
“And if it doesn’t happen, then you do everything you can to get Stoke City back to the Premier League.”
He remains confident, on the back of recent evidence, that Stoke can make it back to the top flight at the first time of asking despite that on-going daylight between themselves and the Championship pacesetters.
“You want to bounce straight back and we are finding our feet a little bit now,” believes Fletcher.
“We seem to have a settled team and the lads are performing fantastically well.
“We have been unlucky and I feel the games we haven’t won, we should have won, and we have been on a long unbeaten run, especially away from home.
“This Christmas period is going to be really difficult, but we have a big and strong squad and I think we are going to come out of this period in a right good position, then push on in the second half of the season and in the New Year.
“We won’t be far off... we will be there or thereabouts.”
Fletcher was speaking during a visit to the children’s ward of the Royal Stoke University Hospital.
Fletcher, himself no stranger to hospitals after well-publicised health problems earlier in his career, said: “We have been in some really tough wards and it’s humbling and makes you realise how grateful you should be for the things you have. You see the atmosphere in the hospital rise when the players come and it gives everybody a boost. It’s only a small part for us to play, but it has a massive impact on everyone involved in the hospital.
“So all the players are more than willing to come here.
“You see people in there telling you about the old players and the history of Stoke City, how much the club means to the local people, so you get that community spirit which is what football clubs should be about.
“We mustn’t forget that, with the power of the leagues and the corporate side, and we must remember that football is nothing without the fans.
“They are telling us that a couple of wins and we will be back up there and it’s nice to hear that positivity.”
Stoke city
We seem to have a settled team and the lads are performing fantastically well