Pain Won't Stop Villa Striker

Gabriel Agbonlahor has admitted to playing with an ankle injury but he isn't going to let that worry him as he looks to play through the pain barrier.

'I've got this ankle injury but my confidence is fine - I play every game with the ankle injury. I did it against Manchester United and then I got another knock on it against Spurs, so I've had a few knocks on it now. I'm not thinking of saying anything to the gaffer about it - we need everyone putting in 100 per cent at the moment because the squad's quite small, so there's no time to rest.'

'I'll play with the injury for however long it takes - for the rest of the season if needs be. It's a small injury, but not one that stops me playing, so hopefully I can keep playing. Going 14 games without a goal, obviously your confidence can be a bit low. But I scored on Saturday (v Manchester United) and hopefully there's more to come. Scoring at one of the best stadiums in Europe meant a lot to me. The goal lifted the team too, and we had more chances then to have even got a draw out of the game.'

And on the goal he said: 'Milan (Baros) went on a nice little run, squared in across and I was there to put it in the back of the net. I'm looking to go on a run now. Hopefully, if I'm selected next week against Watford, I can get another goal. We'll have to wait and see. Obviously I'm a little bit tired after playing every minute of every game. But when I was a young lad I used to dream of playing in the Premiership, so I'm not going to let tiredness stop me from playing.'

Yeah, as a kid I used to dream of playing in the old Division One, now I sit and type about the lucky buggers making £20 000 a week, bastards! ;-) Not sure where it all went wrong really, oh yeah, hang on, I remember now, I had no talent, coordination or ability.....!

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