Home
About
Blog Tour
Advertise
Contact
Posts
Hleb regrets leaving Arsenal for Barcelona
Posted by
Editor at Wednesday, 12 August 2009
|
Share this post:
|
|
Speaking to American football site ESPNsoccernet, Stuttgart attacker and Barelona loan out Alexander Hleb (28) has repeated that he regrets his move from Arsenal to Barcelona:
"Of course I regret leaving Arsenal. I was playing every week for one of the most exciting sides in Europe, a team which was always in the top-four in the Premier League and were Champions League contenders.
Also, I was being guided by one of the best coaches in the world in Arsene Wenger. I owe him a great deal. I developed a better all-round game under him and I became more robust physically, learnt to look up more and play better passes and generally improved greatly as a team player. No player ever gets worse under Wenger.
For me, leaving Arsenal was not a good move. A footballer only exists when he takes to the field and makes a proper contribution to the team and even though I was part of a Barca squad that was almost unstoppable, it was hard not to feel detached from all the happiness and celebration at the end.
Barca were my dream club as a kid, but I couldn't continue with them if the chance to play was not coming. I'm 28 and who knows how much time I've left in the game. I needed to move on and the chance to go back to a place that I feel happy in was the best solution.
I'm happy to be back in Germany. It was more a pro-Stuttgart than an anti-Inter decision. I was coming off the back of a season almost entirely spent on the bench at Barca and just wanted to go to a team where I was completely comfortable and could play regularly.
I needed to bounce back at the first possible opportunity and returning to Stuttgart is a low-risk way of setting about it as this club is like home to me. Even though Bayern Munich showed interest in me and I was tempted, Stuttgart's offer overrode everything."
read the full interview report here
Read more:
Stuttgart wants to make Hleb loan permanent
Hleb regrets Barcelona move
OFFICIAL: Hleb to Stuttgart on loan