Oliver Arblaster's surprise stance on Sheffield United injury hell as he details darkest days
Oliver Arblaster has enjoyed a memorable week, scoring a superb winner for Sheffield United at Bristol City, but has not forgotten the mental battle he faced during his 14-month absence through injury - and doesn’t want to
After going through all the pain, the operations, the tears and the rehabilitation from a devastating anterior cruciate ligament injury, you would forgive Oliver Arblaster for wanting to forget about his 14-month nightmare on the sidelines. But, in a perverse sort of way, part of him wants to remember it instead.
What a sense of perspective those 14 months must offer a young man who, despite being just 22, has had to grow up quickly on and off the field.
Having recently become a father to a baby boy and marked his return to the Sheffield United side with a superb winner at Bristol City, Arblaster has plenty to feel good about.
But the boyhood Blade also knows from bitter experience how quickly things can change. “I do still want to remember it,” he admitted of his injury hell.
“Other people, while I was going through it, could see just how hard it was for me. When you're doing the same thing over and over again, and you get set back that many times, you start questioning all sorts.
“I can still see the nights, the endless nights, where I was literally just in my room, crying. Thinking I wasn’t ever going to play football again. I'd be on the phone to the physio at one or two in the morning, just ringing them up and asking: ‘Why is my knee like this? Why is my knee like this?’
“They probably thought I was just a stress head, which, to be fair, is what I'm like anyway. But those are the things I remember from those moments, when I really didn't know if I was going to play football again.
“Nothing is worse than that. Mentally, going through all that makes you a lot better. Even just in the last nine months of being back, I've been mentally a lot stronger because of it.”
United, and boss Chris Wilder, have been patient with Arblaster but the belief remains there that he can rediscover his place as one of the best-regarded young midfielders in English football.
And he showed exactly why on Saturday with a superb winner, chesting the ball down before finding the bottom corner with an excellent strike. Afterwards he was pushed forward to soak up the acclaim from the travelling Blades in what was surely another memorable moment in his formative career.
Asked what the biggest thing he’d learned about himself during his 14-month period on the sidelines, Arblaster admitted: “Probably that I'm a lot stronger than I thought I was. I've never been through something like that. I've had a few injuries, but nothing longer than three or four weeks.
“It's the mental side of it and the challenge of waking up knowing you're not going to come in and train, or you're waking up to lift weights again, or you're waking up to lie on a physio bed. It's the things like that and the thoughts that go through your head. You're constantly thinking.
“But when you're in it and you're in the gym, you kind of have to mentally get yourself around it. ‘I don't want to be in here, but if I'm going to get back, if I want to get back and feel as good as I was before, then I've got to push myself.’
“There are many days when you just don't want to do it, but that's just how it is. Mentally, you're a lot better from going through it.”