Tim Ream has laid bare his injury nightmare after suffering a back problem against Celta Vigo – saying that the severity of the problems had him worrying for the future of his career.
The 31 year-old has now returned to training at Motspur Park after missing six weeks and seems to be upper most in Slavisa Jokanovic’s thoughts after a difficult start to Fulham’s Premier League season. Ream told GetWestLondon’s Ryan O’Donovan during a detailed interview:
“It was more… it was difficult. It was more personally frustrating than anything else because I knew, based on and pre-season talking with the staff, I knew where I stood. There was going to be that and having something taken, not by anyone else, but by my body, was terribly frustrating to know there was nothing I could have done, or did to prevent it and know there was no light at the end of the tunnel.
It wasn’t like a muscle injury and say, okay, four weeks and here we go. I could do a few things but there was nothing I could do to speed up recovery, make it strong and that was the agonising part. Then we had bodies coming in. We won promotion, we knew the score, new guys would need to come in and we all knew that. We needed people to help the team, be all aboard.
That didn’t upset me, just the nature of the whole recovery – knowing there was nothing I could do. There’s no explanation. I knew something was wrong right away but I am saving those details for myself. It was one of those things where I was hanging out with the wife and kids and some things didn’t feel right. Sure enough, I went in the next day and got confirmation I was going to be out with no time frame.
I know eventually I will be able to explain everything, explain what went wrong but I am going to give that a little bit of time before I know I am clear of any recurrence. But yes, I had a few wobbles, a few rough nights, days. There was no time telling when I would come back.
There is no time frame. I could have been out another four to six weeks but we went another route and and hopefully now it has settled down and I am back in training. There is no guarantee, there are still a few things I need to stay on top of, but I have been doing that and the fact that I have played and came through with out any recurrence has gone a long way for my mental and physical confidence.”
