Matty Cash has revealed he had two offers to leave Aston Villa this summer but his relationship with manager Unai Emery convinced him to stay and sign a new contract.
The 28-year-old joined Villa from Nottingham Forest for £16 million ($21m) in 2020 and has made 195 appearances for the club to date.
Forest were among the clubs interested in signing Cash but in an exclusive interview with ESPN, the Poland defender told 'The Football Reporters' that he was always focused on staying at Villa Park.
"I had two offers from different clubs in the summer but I never really focused on that," said Cash, who last month agreed a new deal which will tie him to Villa until 2029.
"My main priority is to stay at Villa. I think Villa's a great club, I've done a lot of work there obviously over the years to progress as a player and I still think there's a lot more to go to be honest.
"So my main priority I said in the summer to the manager when we had a chat that I wanted to stay, I wanted to keep improving and this year I think I found a good little bit of form and [I was] delighted that they came to me and offered me a deal.
"We always have an end of season talk and he just asked me where I was at and how I was feeling and that he'd love to keep me.
"I still had a few years left on my contract as well but it was a point where 'was I going to renew or what was the case?'
"I had an open and honest chat that I really want to stay. It's a great club. I feel really settled here. I feel at home here. I've got my house and stuff here and I just wanted to commit my future and then they came to me and offered me a new contract.
"It had been in the pipeline for a few months when we had the conversation. But I was never really set on leaving. I feel at home and feel settled.
"I have a good connection with the manager. We have a lot of conversations, not regularly, but we have conversations one-to-one a lot and he's a massive part in me obviously committing and obviously the club as well.
"It speaks for itself. Obviously playing for such a big club is an honour but having a manager that's so good behind it is definitely a big key factor."
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Emery had a transformative effect on Villa since taking over from Steven Gerrard in October 2022, guiding the club into the Champions League for the first time since 1982-83.
The 54-year-old's attention to detail extends to notoriously meticulous video sessions which Cash says are "getting longer to be honest."
"It's funny because when you win a few games in a row, he gets more demanding and the videos go double as long," he continued.
"We've definitely been in the video room for sometimes over an hour and 40 minutes easily. When we play, we then the week after watch the last game and he'll clip everything, literally an hour and 40 minutes easily of what we can do.
"It's funny because when we score, when he shows the clip of the goal, he'll then show other things we could do even though we've just scored. He's showing us different lines of where we could have played and that just shows the detail and the intensity that he's at and how much he wants us to improve."
Cash also revealed how he briefly deleted social media after facing an online backlash to a tackle on Rodrigo Bentancur in November 2023 which sidelined the Tottenham midfielder for a month.
Bentancur has since insisted he had no issue with Cash -- claiming "these things just happen in today's football" and the Villa defender said: "Obviously, I didn't mean the tackle on Bentancur.
"I went for the ball, but it's a challenge and obviously there was a lot of stuff [afterwards].
"I did actually delete social media that week because it was quite bad but it didn't affect me in terms of [thinking] wow this is so bad, everyone's abusing me.' I just blocked it out and thought 'I didn't mean the tackle.'"