James Collins says he was offered a deal at Newport County before joining Ipswich Town

County boss Flynn is looking to strengthen his leaky defence in the January transfer window and has considered a number of options, including former loan star Ben White and Exiles academy product Regan Poole as well as Collins.

The 35-year-old former Cardiff City defender decided against joining his hometown club in League Two at this stage of his career but he’s not ruling out a future move to Rodney Parade.

Speaking on the Elis James' Feast of Football podcast, Collins, who had been without a club since leaving West Ham United last summer, said: “I was expecting a few more offers to come in and it sort of dried up and my face wasn't about.

“I went to school with Flynny [at St Joseph's High] and he gave me a call asking would I like to come down.

“To be honest, no disrespect to Newport, I knew I could play at a higher level at this time in my career.

“I didn't say no to Flynny. I said I was still looking about and we go from there.

“There's still life in the old dog and a couple of years down the line who knows?

“I know for a fact I've got a good couple of years left in me yet.”

Collins proved his credentials with a superb performance on his Ipswich debut last Saturday as he helped the Championship’s bottom club to a vital 1-0 win over relegation rivals Rotherham United at Portman Road.

“At my age I'm not particularly in it for the money – I just want to play more football,” he added.

“I had a nice Christmas with my family and luckily I had the call off Ipswich.”

Ipswich are seven points from safety and Collins says with new additions to the squad that Paul Lambert's side can survive this season.

“It's going to be a tough ask but if we'd have lost that game on Saturday it probably would have been a task that was probably too much,” he said.

“But now we've got the three points we're that much closer. We can only take one game at a time.

“Until it's not possible, we can certainly feel that with the squad we've got now, we can get out of it. It would be unbelievable."

Collins had earlier in the season signed a short-term contract with Aston Villa after training with his former club but injury put paid to an extended spell at Villa Park.

"It just didn't seem right," he said.

"They offered me a short term contract and I got injured the morning I signed the contract and I ripped that up.

"I literally signed the contract, went out to training and pulled my calf in the first warm-up session so I just went in and said 'that's not right to come in and take money,'

"I could have been out for four weeks and I said 'let's rip that up.' It was probably more embarrassment more than anything."

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