Brentford midfielder Alan Judge has spoken of the mental challenges of overcoming a long-term injury.
The 29-year-old has been out of action for the best part of 18 months with a broken tibia and fibula, and as he closes in on a long-awaited first team return, he says that he remains fully focussed.
Speaking to iFollow Brentford, Judge said: “The last 18 months have been hard.
"There were days where I thought that I wasn’t getting any better, and I certainly had a few of them, but you have to go home, wake up the next day, and go again. It is all little markers for me now. On Friday, Florian Jozefzoon took me out in training, which is a massive thing for me.
"You need to get hit in training and I got hit. He maybe didn’t catch me right on the leg but things like that go through your mind. I think that I have been quite good with it: you can’t hide the fact that you need to go into a challenge.
"If you pull out then you know that there is something wrong and I have been quite pleased with myself there. People ask me if I am excited to be back in training and I tell them that I will be excited when I play my first game.”
