John Carew commits his future to Aston Villa

Apr 30 2009 by Bill Howell, Birmingham Mail

‘‘I am enjoying my football and I’m happy to be contributing.”

Carew signed a 12-month contract last August which runs until June 2011.

He has been a massive success since joining from Lyon in January 2007.

Carew finished as Villa’s leading scorer last season and has notched nine league goals so this season.

“If I didn’t love it here you would see that on the pitch,” he said.

“I just want to continue and to do well the whole of next season and avoid all the injuries which hindered me.

“I have scored a lot this season and if I hadn’t been out for months it could have been a lot more.”

Manager O’Neill seems convinced Carew wants to stay, saying recently: “Has he got a future here? Yes. Is he happy here? Yes. The crowd like him a lot, he is responding to that which is great.”

Carew heads into Monday’s game against Hull City after scoring almost a goal every other game since his return from injury against Wigan in January, with six in his last 13 appearances.

Villa have gone 12 games without a win and Carew says the time has come for that to end with only a sixth home win of the season.

“We just have to roll up our sleeves and win that game,’’ said Carew.

‘‘It’s no maybe, we just have to go and do it.

“We just have to go out, be rock solid and put away the chances we create.

“If we could win our last two games at home that would be fantastic for the fans and make them look at next season optimistically.

“We don’t want people to be going off for their summers depressed, we want them to be happy for their breaks.

“When they are sitting talking about the league in June we want them to be optimistic.”