Listening to Nelsen on that recent Between Two Beers Podcast, he just basically woke up one day and had completely lost the love of playing football. Think his bad knee was giving him a lot of grief by then. Struck him most when sitting in the Loftus Road dressing room after a big QPR upset over neighbours Chelsea, and he just sat there numb with no real emotion of the occasion.
Pretty much retired on the spot, even though QPR offered him another one (or was it two?) year deal. So was never going to come to the Nix for comparative peanuts after that, if the competitive juices weren't flowing anymore. I guess he was always likely to head into some sort of successful & stimulating post football career in the US, once he worked out how that was going to look.
Tommy Smith & Reid, both already part own football academies? But really Reid once his Hammers contract runs it's course, and if his body is still regularly failing him - he might as well retire. He's getting paid so much over this 5 year deal, he'll be well set for life post football. Don't know if he'd have much motivation to uproot his family down to NZ, a country he hasn't lived in for 20+ years, for a season at the Nix.
Pretty much retired on the spot, even though QPR offered him another one (or was it two?) year deal. So was never going to come to the Nix for comparative peanuts after that, if the competitive juices weren't flowing anymore. I guess he was always likely to head into some sort of successful & stimulating post football career in the US, once he worked out how that was going to look.
Tommy Smith & Reid, both already part own football academies? But really Reid once his Hammers contract runs it's course, and if his body is still regularly failing him - he might as well retire. He's getting paid so much over this 5 year deal, he'll be well set for life post football. Don't know if he'd have much motivation to uproot his family down to NZ, a country he hasn't lived in for 20+ years, for a season at the Nix.