Hatters defender Galloway admits long-term injury affected him mentally

Defender Brendan Galloway has spoken of just how tough it has been mentally to battle back from his horror injury last season.

The 24-year-old had come on at half time of the 7-0 defeat at Brentford in November 2019, before going down just 20 minutes later, needing to be stretchered off.

His diagnosis was a ruptured patella, which kept the former Everton full back out for the remainder of the season.

After making his first playing return against Stevenage recently, Galloway then had the last 30 minutes of the 3-0 pre-season friendly win at Northampton on Saturday.

Speaking about his lengthy spell out, Galloway said: “It was awful, a real bad feeling, but I guess that’s part of the game.

“Injuries happen and straight away my focus was just that I need to come back stronger.

“I can’t really remember it, I’ve watched it back and still I don’t know exactly how it happened or why it happened, but it’s part of the game.

“It’s been a long nine months, but hopefully now I can start kicking on.

“It’s the hardest part of the game, that nine months was so long and mentally it’s tough, mentally it got to me.

“When I was back in and around the lads, it lifted up my spirits a bit, and when you see the lads out on the pitch, you just want to be out there.

“Unfortunately you can’t be as you need to do the rehab but when I am actually out there it felt good.”

Galloway paid tribute to the squad and medical staff at Kenilworth Road for keeping him going during those dark times.

He continued: “I had a long nine months out and fair play to the physios, the fitness coach, they helped me through it, and hopefully I’ll come back stronger.

“I think that was very important for me, I’ve been in and around the lads still, that’s massive for me, as most of the time it was long days in the gym, just trying to get as strong as possible.

“Then when I was back in with the lads, it helped my confidence and it was great to be around them.

“All I can do is work hard in training every day, push to the max, get as fit as possible and hopefully I can be in.”

When Galloway is ready to make his return to the first team competitively it will be with Hatters as a Championship club, after Town completed the Great Escape to stay up just over a month ago.

It was done under the stewardship of Nathan Jones, who replaced Graeme Jones, the man that signed Galloway, during the lockdown period.

On Jones, who was a full back himself during his playing days, the defender said: “He’s brilliant, a real top manager.

“You can see what he did with the boys in League Two and League One, and he’s come in towards the end of last season, did a great job, everyone here loves him and I think he’s a very good manager.

“He’ll give me points and talk to me about positioning, stuff that I can improve on.

“As a coach, he obviously knows his stuff, you can just easily put your trust into him and if you’ve got a question, he’s always there to talk to.”

When discussing the players’ efforts to remain in the second tier, taking 16 points out of a possible 27, Galloway added: “Fair play to the lads, it’s a great group of lads here and when we restarted, we were in a tough position.

“But I think that everyone just remained confident, remained positive and just put our trust in each other, that’s the most important thing.

“You can see how hard it was as we had a real bunch of tough games. We fought the 90 minutes in all the games and we managed to stay up comfortably in the end."