John Terry's career in England appears to be at an end.

The Chelsea legend made a bold call in joining Aston Villa last summer, with the English legend looking to help Steve Bruce's side make their way back to the Premier League.

And he was so close to doing so, with the Villains losing out in the play-off final vs Fulham on the weekend.

Tom Cairney scored the only goal of the game, with Villa unable to break down the Cottagers despite Dennis Odoi picking up a red card early in the second half.

Terry said after the game: "I will look back on my time here and think about how close we were to reaching our goal.

"I have given my everything this year both on and off the pitch and I'm still hurting today that we never managed to get back to the Premier League, where this club 100percent belongs."

It has come as a bitter blow to the Villa hierarchy, with the club now in a rather desperate financial situation.

Dr Tony Xia has spent big in recent windows on the likes of Ross McCormack and Jonathan Kodjia, with Terry also commanding a fairly high wage.

And it has been revealed that due to this, Villa did not even offer Terry a contract extension before he announced his departure on Instagram, per Daily Mail.

It's a rather sad end to his career in England, however, you have to feel Villa would have offered him a new deal if they had better financial resources - they will likely have to sell Jack Grealish as well.

With the new restrictions - Championship clubs are not permitted to lose more than £39m a season - Villa are clearly prioritising younger players.

Terry will certainly not be looking to retire, with the defenders likely to have a number of offers from both the MLS and Chinese Super League.

There is also a school of thought that he may choose to take on a huge challenge at Rangers, where his old pal Steven Gerrard has recently been instated as manager.

Stranger things have certainly happened in football over the years.