Harvey Elliott has revealed he suffered more dark days than good during the recovery from his serious ankle injury in September 2021.
The youngster was a surprise inclusion for Jurgen Klopp in his midfield trio at the start of the 2021/22 season, but after a series of impressive showings, heartbreak struck when he fractured and dislocated his ankle in an away win at Leeds United.
Elliott underwent surgery on the injury and was initially told he would be out of action for around six months, but he was determined to return earlier and he did just that.
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The lifelong Red made his comeback in the FA Cup clash against Cardiff City in February 2022. And to make an already emotional afternoon even better, he scored his first goal for the club has has supported since a boy to seal a 3-1 win.
And Elliott has spoken on the We Are Liverpool podcast about recovering from his ankle injury. He said: "There were probably more of those days than there were when I was strong and thought to myself that I'm going to be better. There were some days where it did get to me.
"Times where I was by myself, I wanted to come in the building and put a smile on to everyone to show I'm okay, it's not affected me, but deep inside it did. Not being able to play football is one thing, but to go from playing matches at the start of the season to then just being injured for that long, and the manner in what I was injured in, and you hear people say stuff on social media.
"As hard as it is to stay off, you still see these things. For me, it was very tough, but it kind of kept me going trying to prove people wrong. There was one comment that stuck by me from the start of my rehab to when I scored against Cardiff and it said: 'you'll never walk again'.
"I thought I'm going to take that and run with it and come back. The way I came back was all a dream come true for me."
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