Spurs star admits: I don’t know if I’ll be here next season

By Ben Pearce, Tottenham correspondent Wednesday, February 13, 2013
3:46 PM

William Gallas admits he is unsure what his future holds as he enters the final months of his Tottenham contract – and Andre Villas-Boas says he will be looking to offload one of his five centre-backs in the summer.

Gallas will turn 36 at the start of next season and, although he intends to keep playing, he is unsure whether he will be at White Hart Lane at the start of the 2013-14 campaign.

“Am I hoping to stay? I don’t know, I don’t think about it,” he said. “I definitely want to keep playing. I feel good, I feel I’ve still got something left in my legs and in my head I certainly feel that I’m good for another one or two years.

“Will I be more likely to stay if we qualify for the Champions League? Maybe. If we qualify everybody at Tottenham will be happy and I would be happy as well.

“Maybe I would think more about it - but I’m not thinking about this, I just want to finish my season very well and then I’ll make my decision at the end.”

The decision may be taken out of Gallas’ hands, though, with Villas-Boas confirming that he is planning to lose a centre-back from his squad in the summer.

Asked whether Gallas may be handed an extension to his contract, Villas-Boas said: “It’s a difficult one, we have five top central defenders at the moment.

“We have a mixture of young players coming through – young players with lots of experience like Jan, and then players coming through like Steven Caulker. Then you have such tremendous central defenders as Dawson, William and Younes Kaboul.

“In my opinion, in the squads that I’ve made in the past, they are built on four central defenders. We’ve decided to go on with five this season because we had a setback to Younes in the beginning of the season.

“At the moment it’s a decision we have to take but what I can tell you is that William has been a massive player for us this season. I think also William recognises it as one of his best seasons in the Premier League.

“He’s played most of the league games for us and he’s had great partnerships with Jan and Caulker so he’s a player that we trust a lot - but what we decide regarding the future we still have to wait and see.

“We won’t start another season with five central defenders, for sure, but I think is normal in any club.”

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