Sunderland's Jordan Willis opens up on importance of mental health as he eyes injury return

When Jordan Willis ruptured his patella tendon in February 2021, he expected to be out for six months. However, a second rupture sustained during surgery to fix the original issue has ended up keeping the defender out for over a year.

The former Coventry man returned to training last week but he has detailed how the injury affected him on a mental level in an interview with BBC Radio Newcastle. He revealed that at times he worried for the future of his career, saying: "It’s a weird one because initially you’re worried about the injury, worried about how long you’re going to be out.

"You get the scans and you take it on board but it doesn’t fully sink in yet. When you’re sat in the physio room the isolation sets in.

"Different injuries have different timings. It was meant to be a six-month injury. After the second rupture it was difficult to get my head around but at the same time, I did manage to get my head around it pretty early. Just the fact they are career-threatening injuries so it wasn’t about worrying about the time-frame but just getting back playing [at all]."

In explaining how being away from the rest of the team and playing and 'finding his identity' in playing football had affected him, Willis explained that he and team-mate Luke O'Nien had found ways to cope. O'Nien has returned to the team already by this stage, however he missed 19 games with a shoulder injury and was a companion of Willis' in the treatment room.

"For the first however many months of my injury that want to be back out there wasn’t there. I just had to focus on getting myself right before I could even think about being back out there," he added.

"I thought I was doing fine [mentally] in the first part of my injury but looking back I