JASON KNIGHT SAYS he won’t make any decision on his Derby County future until he has had a chance to go on holiday and “shut my mind off” for a couple of weeks.
The 22-year-old is wanted by Championship club Bristol City, whose most recent bid of £1.5 million was reportedly turned down.
Stephen Kenny said at the start of this month that Knight was a player in demand, and that a move away from the League One club was required to kickstart his career.
“He’s another one on the verge of a move now. A lot of clubs want to buy Jason, which will be good for him, to get back to playing at a level higher than League One. Derby have been great to him, he’s played a high amount of games for them for someone so young. But he’s at that stage where he probably needs to go and play at a higher level to kick on,” the Ireland boss said.
Knight is aware of his international manager’s feelings but admitted he cannot be influenced by outside factors, insisting
“Yeah, I heard those comments but I have a year left on my contract. It is time for some downtime now and I will assess everything before the start of pre-season and see what happens,” the versatile operator said, adding he did not discuss the matter with Kenny while on duty over the last couple of weeks.
“No, we haven’t, we haven’t had time, we have just been focusing on the games with two big games coming up. I might speak to him in the off-season and see what he says, but we haven’t really talked that much about it.
“Of course, I will take the manager’s advice in but I am my own man as well and I need to make my own decisions, and I will live and die by them. We will see what happens.
“I am an ambitious person, and I want to play at the highest level I can at club level and international level,” Knight continued.
“But it is a great club, there are a lot of great people at the club. And I think there is foundations being built again to make it go up the levels and there are certain people behind the scenes pushing it. There are good times ahead at Derby, the club is in a good place now.”
Trying to get the balance right between loyalty to Derby and fulfilling his ambitions is
“It is a fine line and I will have to assess everything in the summer. I will get away for a couple of weeks and shut my mind off and make the decision in the pre-season.”
