Newcastle United defender DeAndre Yedlin has revealed that he suffered for 18 months with an on-off groin injury that regularly caused him a lot of pain.
The 26-year-old, though, decided to have surgery to fix the problem as soon as last season ended.
This has meant he missed all of Newcastle’s pre-season campaign, but he is now back and ready to compete with Javier Manquillo and Emil Krafth for the right-back role in Steve Bruce’s starting XI.
Yedlin has admitted he was disappointed to miss pre-season – as he feels he has not had time to impress Steve Bruce and is now doing all he can in training.
The USA international, who has made 95 appearances for Newcastle, also believes he will have to battle for his place and accepts he won’t get straight into the team.
Finally, Yedlin feels the injury affected his performances last year as he was always unsure about whether his groin would flare up or not.
This would be a logical explanation for a series of under-par displays from Yedlin last season – the 26-year-old at times didn’t even look like a professional footballer, and Rafael Benitez dropped him in favour of Manquillo.
Now he is back, and I hope he can stake a claim for the right-back spot – as Yedlin has shown nothing but total commitment to Newcastle since he joined in 2016.