Newcastle United striker Callum Wilson has explained how close he came to leaving Bournemouth for West Brom four years ago – but how Cherries boss at the time Eddie Howe convinced him to remain at the club.
Callum Wilson said: “There was an opportunity in the January to go to West Brom. They were willing to bid. I said to the manager: ‘this is me. This is time for me to go.’ It got to a point where he said ‘no, listen, you’re going to stay’ – and that was probably the weak side of me coming out. I thought yeah, do you know what? I’m not leaving this place without leaving some history behind me. I am going to stay, fight for my place, this and that. It was the day after the transfer window closed that I did my second ACL. I’d gone from wanting to leave the day before to doing my ACL. It was in a training session where, if you play a game Saturday, you have Sunday off and you recover on the Monday. All the players who were on the bench played a training session on the Monday. It was in one of those sessions. I was cursing the manager because I felt as though I shouldn’t have even been in the session – I should’ve been in the starting XI. I had all that to deal with, but I thought this is an opportunity to get both knees right and come back a different animal.”
