Former Ipswich Town star Ashley Young has revealed he needs a hip replacement.
The 41-year-old finished a glittering career by helping Town win promotion back to the Premier League last season, having signed a one-year deal.
He became the oldest player to have ever been recruited by the club, but only played 15 times due to injury issues - his last time in Blue was off the bench in Town's 2-0 home win over Bristol City back on January 20th.
Now, speaking to Jake Humphrey on the popular High Performance Podcast, Young has revealed the severity of his injury, which worsened during his time in Suffolk.
"I went down on my hip in November," he explained. "I had an injection, and I’ve always said to myself, if my body’s saying you need injections, there’s a problem.
“Basically, I need a hip replacement. So in November it was like ‘you need it in ten years’ time’ and I then got to January and I was due to have another injection which would have got me through to the end of the season.
“A week before I’m due to get the injection I go down in training and I’m like ‘this is worse.’ I go and see a specialist and he’s like ‘yeah it’s a whole lot worse.’.
“And I’m like ‘in November you said to me I’ve got ten years before I need a hip replacement.’ He said ‘you’ve probably got about two.’"
Despite the injury, Young says finishing his career with a promotion was the perfect end.
“Basically, I’m bone on bone," he continued. "They’ve said over-use. The physios and the docs said to me, especially this season ‘have you had a problem with your hip before?’ and I was like ’no’. They were like ‘you’re literally bone-on-bone, there’s no cartilage there.’
“I literally had two or three months where I couldn’t train, it was just that painful. And I went and saw the specialist again and I said ‘listen, I’m not going out like this.’
“And he was like ‘I don’t really want to give you another injection, because it’s just going to weaken the area.’
“And I said ‘trust me, if I get an opportunity to be back on the pitch, I’ll be back on the pitch.’
“The last two months of the season, I was training every day.
"It would have been incredible to be able to say that I’d come on the pitch for the last game of the season, but for me, being able to train and then for us to be promoted on the last day of the season, it was just fitting.”
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