Danny Drinkwater insisted on his decision to paint on structure sites after receiving abusive messages saying he would “hit rock bottom. “
Drinkwater announced his retirement from football in October, having been unable to locate the club following a loan spell at Reading for the 2021/22 campaign. The 34-year-old midfielder has enjoyed an impressive career, starting at Manchester United before winning the Premier League with Leicester, winning 3 caps for England and sealing a £35m transfer to Chelsea.
He was paid £120,000-a-week for his time with the Blues but was around a bit, being loaned out to Burnley, Aston Villa, Turkish club Kasimpasa and Reading. Drinkwater has been unabashed about his intellectual fitness issues, having made headlines for being accused of drink-driving and being attacked outside a nightclub.
Since quitting football, he has tried to break into the business world, but The Sun reported in November that he had lost £782,000 at a failing restaurant in Manchester that went bankrupt after racking up £2 million in debt. He bought a 70% stake in a restaurant that has since closed.
So Drinkwater sought out more concrete paintings and shared a photo of him running at a structure site with his 585,000 followers. “Today on the site,” he wrote in a photo showing him in front of a scaffolding.
The choice of his career provoked negative comments, to which Drinkwater felt the desire to respond. Sharing one that read, “Damn Danny, hit rock bottom,” he replied, “Some of those messages, behave. I love being there to graft! It’s a selection. “
Drinkwater is still finding his way after football, having admitted that deciding to end his career is a complicated process. “Anyone who thinks that making a lot of money will solve all their problems is not true at all,” he said last year. “Mental fitness is more vital than physical fitness. It’s the darkest I’ve ever felt.
Speaking about his retirement on the High Performance podcast in October, he said: “I think I’ve been in limbo for too long, or I was looking to play but didn’t get the opportunity to play at a point where I felt valued. I just think that I got agitated here for no reason, I am satisfied not to play football, but I am satisfied to play football, so do I shake hands with sport?
“It’s all I’ve ever known, it’s been my life since I was six or seven years old, it’s never been a simple thing. I think the way he calmed down definitely helped me. If I played week after week and “
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