Gareth McAuley to continue playing next season with or without West Brom
West Brom defender Gareth McAuley insists he'll continue to play next season - whether it's with Albion or not.
The 38-year-old joined the Baggies in 2011, making more than 200 appearances - but only played 12 times during their disastrous relegation campaign.
With his contract up this summer, it was not known whether the Northern Ireland international would continue his playing career.
But he's now spoken out to confirm his plans to keep on playing.
"I want to play next year - I've not spoken to West Brom, or no-one has been in contact with me since the end of the season." he said.
"I don't know where that sits. I haven't been told, 'We want you there or we don't want you'. I'm not sure what the club is thinking about me."
Having registered over 500 career appearances, the centre-back has admitted that this season, spent mostly on the bench at Albion, was one of ultimate disappointment for himself and the club.
Despite his lack of first-team action, he holds no bad blood with Darren Moore, who led Albion on a spirited push for survival which didn't prove quite enough, but admitted he was surprised at the reasons he was given behind his omission.
"It's been a difficult season - not having played an awful lot as well and it's the first time I've experienced that in my career" he said.
"I am absolutely fine with Darren Moore - he's been great since he's gone in there and put the values back into the club that were missing and leaving for a while."
"I was trying my best to get back into the team but the reasons I was being given for not being included didn't sit very well with me,"
"But, in saying that, everyone wants to play and if you are not then you still have to support the boys who are pulling on the shirt."
If no new deal is offered to McAuley, he'll be free to explore options to continue his career, with a move abroad also of interest to the veteran.
"Abroad would possibly interest me, but it doesn't have to be somewhere warm or anything like that, I just want to be playing regular football."
"Hopefully I'll have a couple of options to look at."
