“I’ve been through hell and back over the last couple of years.” Condensed to a dozen words scattered across little more than three seconds, Phil Jones’s delivery belied the severity of his sentiment.

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There is also the threat of returning a different player altogether. Alan Smith, an all-action striker when he arrived at Old Trafford, was midway through his second term at the club when he suffered a career-changing injury at Anfield. Awkwardly blocking a free-kick broke his fibula and tibia while also, most devastatingly of all, dislocating his ankle. “It was something I had to come to terms with, the fact that I would never get back to the levels I was at previously,” he conceded, looking back on his 13 months on the sidelines.  “I ended up with 50, maybe 60 per cent movement in my ankle compared to what it should have been. I knew I’d never get back to the levels I was at previously.  You come back [playing], you’re on a high, you’re flying on adrenaline, but when you go home at night, you’re thinking: ‘This is not how I was before.’ Everything’s so much more difficult to do, even the simple stuff. Striking the ball with my left foot, I couldn’t really do it. You’ve got no power in it, no confidence in it. “You can’t do the stuff you want to do, and you start thinking: ‘I’m miles off, here.’  There’s that horrible realisation that if you’re one per cent off it at Man United, you’re probably gone. If you’re 10, 12, 15 per cent off it, which I was, you’re in a different world.” Smith recuperated to the point that he was able to continue at Premier League level with Newcastle United for another five years, ultimately mustering 11 more years as a professional after his departure from Old Trafford. But, while the fiery Yorkshireman was able to salvage his career despite his injury ordeal, every player entering rehab for serious injury courts the risk that the process may not even resemble a happy ending.

“I came to Manchester United to help win the Champions League,” recalled Owen Hargreaves, whose dream start to life as a Red soon turned into a nightmare. “We were able to do that, I was able to play a big part, play 34 games and after the treatment I had in the summer [of 2008], I virtually never played again. For any young player to be 27, be at that point in your career, having so many highs, being central to United’s plans and England’s plans, and then virtually never play again and try to deal with all of that, was very, very difficult. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

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For fellow striker Ruud van Nistelrooy, the rehab journey was shorter, clocking at less than a year to rebuild a collapsed knee, but his inspiration was simply beginning his United career, rather than resuming it.  Having sustained the injury while a proposed transfer to Old Trafford was on hold, the Dutchman had surgery in Colorado and began his rehab in Eindhoven, but his mind was only ever in Manchester.  “From the very start of it all, I was working towards one thing: being a United player,” he said. “It was a constant drive. Every single day that I got up, it was my motivation. If I was going to go back, then I needed a good knee for that. I didn’t leave anything to chance. I used all the time that I had to work on my knee and my physique at the same time. I wanted to look at it as almost a year out to prepare, where I could invest in myself, in my physique and to use it to come back stronger. “I did a lot of total body work – upper body, legs, core – because if you’re strong and quick in your legs, and you can use your upper body as well for extra strength, it’s a good combination. I think that total approach paid off. The rehab went perfectly. Looking back now, I scored 80 of my 150 goals for United in my first two years at the club, and that was all because of the time that I put in during my rehab.”

'The Long and Winding Road' was first published in March's Inside United.  You can find the latest edition of our monthly magazine, available to buy online, here.

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