Aston Villa captain John Terry wants to play on next season - and he hopes to come up against his former club Chelsea.

Terry ended a 22-year association with Chelsea last summer and linked up with long time admirer Steve Bruce at Villa Park.

The 37-year-old agreed to a one-year contract and admitted that a key factor behind his decision to join Villa was so that he wouldn’t come face to face with his beloved Chelsea.

Terry has now decided to play on for at least another year and hopes to lead Villa into the Premier League which would see a reunion with his former club.

The Sunday People reports Terry has indicated to Bruce that he would be happy to stay at B6.

However, Premier League football could be key to securing the deal. Terry would land a hefty bonus if Villa returned to the big time, but he’d have to take a pay cut to remain at the club if it were in the Championship.

Apart from a two-month spell on the sidelines due to a broken metatarsal, Terry has been a constant in Villa’s backline and has become a hugely popular figure in the dressing room and on the terraces.

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Local lad Jack Grealish is playing the best football of his Villa career and Terry is understood to have taken the 22-year-old under his wing in order to help him fulfill his potential.

Bruce has gone on record many a time to explain why Terry is far more than just a fantastic footballer.

“People like Glenn Whelan, Mile Jedinak and John Terry in particular have been there done it and worn the t-shirt,” Bruce said recently.

“The more you have of them the better.

“The reason I brought them here was not just to handle big games but to handle Aston Villa.

“They have done that fantastically well all season.”

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It's not quite a mountain yet, but two defeats have left Aston Villa with a mighty big hill to climb to achieve automatic promotion, writes Gregg Evans.

Steve Bruce faced the press after the second of those losses - a 1-0 defeat at Bolton Wanderers.

Here's what the Villa boss had to say:

THE TARGET

“We are capable. We have just done it. We are probably going to need to win six of our last eight, but it is possible.

“We can’t give up.

“I am just disappointed that we have given ourselves a wonderful opportunity and our last two performances in particular have not been up to the standard of a week ago.”

“It is not over yet. That is for sure. We can’t give up. We just have to get on with it."

AUTOMATIC PROMOTION

“Automatic? Well, look we’ve lost two in three days and other teams are capable of that.

“As I’ve said repeatedly, we need to win our games and we haven’t.

“We’ve had a wonderful opportunity against QPR and Bolton - no disrepect to either of them - but we haven’t took anything from it.

“In that respect we deserve to be where we are."

ULTIMATE AIM

“The same as when I first arrived here. I know the remit, that’s where I have to be challenging.

“I said we’ve got to give ourselves a chance but we’ve had a horrible five days.

“We’ve lost more games in five days than we have previously in three months.

“We’ll have to recover, still eight games to go, still all to play for, but we’ve certainly given the initiative to the others.

“In my experience, there’s still a few twists and turns.

“April is huge - that’s the defining month."

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THE SNOW

“We have played a certain type of football, but on a night like tonight, if I had seen it coming down the way it was I might have picked a different team.

“When we left the hotel it was a glorious afternoon, by the time it kicked off.

“When we came in from the warm-up there was grass. When we came back out there was two inches of snow. It was a difficult night.

“It was an awful night and I don’t want to make that an excuse but the conditions certainly didn’t help.

“We couldn’t play any sort of real football out there.

“They adapted to the conditions better than we did and it wasn’t a night for our wide players because they couldn’t run with the ball.

“It was a difficult night for all.

“It was very difficult. When it’s like that it becomes a real leveller.

“They put it forward and played very simply."

BOLTON'S WINNER

“It was soft. It was always going to be a goal from a set-piece wasn’t it?

“We haven’t done enough.

THE INTERNATIONAL BREAK

“It’s a ridiculous time for all of us.

“We’ve got five games in a short space of time after the break but it’s a waste of time going on about that.

“I’ll not see 12-15 of them for 10 tens or so. You have to get on with it.”

GIVING IT A GO

“I thought we had to go a bit more direct (late on by finishing with four strikers).

“It was a wonderful save at the death (to deny James Bree) and Scotty Hogan’s had a great chance.

“We were nowhere near good enough but we still had some really decent opportunities.

“However, we found it difficult as the night wore on in difficult conditions.

“We tried, huffed and puffed, but we couldn’t get the breakthrough."