The agony of Sam Byram

I'm writing this on Friday, while the transfer window is still open, so it's not a moment for definitive thoughts on the future of, say, Luis Sinisterra, Darko Gyabi or Helder Costa. Instead I'm still thinking about a low moment in last weekend's otherwise celebratory match at Portman Road.

What struck me when Sam Byram went down injured in the 21st minute was how calm he looked. This, it seemed, was familiar, and in his fifth game of the season — his fifth of the month — well, inevitable feels too cruel a word, but predictable. Which is why it felt so unfair and looked so sad as Byram sat on the ground, shaking his head, confusing the teammates who were gathering, concerned. He didn't look in pain, he just looked pissed off, but he was pissed off because he was in pain. Maybe he's got so used to pain that it doesn't register anymore apart from what it means: more time in the treatment room, more time out of the team.

Injuries have come to define Sam Byram in the years since his marvellous first seasons at Leeds. Since he left, he hasn't managed twenty league games in a single season. Byram's aware of what that makes people think. "It’s not a case that people criticise your ability," he told The Athletic in 2020. "It’s more [that they think] you’re not actually competent to play and train, that you are always injured. For me, that’s the worst one."

In his performances for Leeds this season it's easy to see why that can sting. Byram has been playing with the sort of effortless quality he had when he was pushed into Neil Warnock's team in pre-season of 2012/13, and stayed there. Perhaps it's damning Byram with faint praise given the squad Leeds had at the time, but it's not often that a team's best player — by a clear distance — is its right-back, and even less common for that right-back to be just eighteen years old. He's done it again this season, now at left-back, now much older although he hardly looks it: within a few minutes of Byram coming on against Cardiff on the opening day, you could tell he was going to be just fine, that the Premier League should be his level. If — the big if — if he can stay fit.

The adductor strain that forced Byram off at Ipswich shouldn't keep him out of the team for long, but it was hard not to feel the worst when he sat down looking so disappointed. And it's hard not to suspect the worst still. Will he really be back so soon? And will he really be able to get into and keep himself in the best condition? Daniel Farke didn't start him against Cardiff because he didn't feel he had the fitness for full games in the Championship just yet, but Leo Hjelde was struggling so much that Byram had to take over. And he had to stay in. And then look what happened.

Which proves at least that the suspicion goes both ways — will Byram stay fit is one question, and will Leeds United break him is the other. Football clubs are supposed to have all the monitoring data they need to keep players out of the 'red zone' in which injuries become more likely, yet here's Sam, into the red and out of the game. Leo Hjelde's performances showed one reason why Byram had to play so much, Cody Drameh's showed another, but thankfully at Ipswich Jamie Shackleton offered Leeds an alternative. Shackleton, though, is another player whose career has been held back at the whim of his strained muscles.

All players are subject to what their bodies will allow, to various degrees, which is why the attention on Byram's fitness might be unfair. Injuries can come for any player, at any time, no matter what their fitness record is. Byram should be managed carefully — he spoke to The Athletic about how different types of training have affected his body in different ways — but he's not the only player at Leeds to have gone down with an adductor strain this season. Which might be its own issue, but it's not one that's about him.

What Byram is about, though, is about making every game count, and counting them until there are a lot more of them than there are now. Watching him play, it's ridiculous that Leeds were able to get him for nothing this summer. But looking at his injury record, the reason is that Byram supposedly has to 'prove' his fitness, 'prove' that he deserves a shot at professional football again. He could justifiably argue that he proved all he had to while he was on the sidelines.

"The first six weeks (after his knee injury), I was basically just sat in my bed on a machine that bent my knee six hours a day, just keeping it moving. That’s probably the lowest part of my career. Everything was negative," he told The Athletic. "It’s a random one but I bought a keyboard piano and learned how to play it," he went on. "Because I didn’t want to put weight on, for the first six or seven weeks, I also hired a wheelchair. In my apartment building, there was a long corridor, so 20 minutes a day, I would just wheel up and down. It’s unbelievable how hard a wheelchair is. It made me appreciate how hard it is for people who have to be in them to get around."

I also have in mind a recent Instagram post from American soccer player Christen Press, facing up to her fourth knee surgery as the World Cup she had hoped to be playing in was getting underway. Recovery — 'climbing the mountain' — had now become its own end, replacing playing football, but replacing it only with uncertainty:

For me, the hardest part of recovery has been that I feel misunderstood. In fact, I feel un-understandable. I'm not anxious to get back on the field. My identity isn't lost by not playing. Most days, I don't even miss it. But that doesn't mean I don't want to get back. That I'm not working every second of every day to return to the pitch.
That hard part is: I don't know what it does mean.

For us watching, Sam Byram going down hurt looks like a new episode of the same old soap opera — we knew this was coming because it always comes. Subbed injured: Sam Byram. But to Byram it's not the same. An adductor strain is not the same as weeks grinding up and down a corridor in a hired wheelchair, or a surgeon's fourth attempt on Christen Press's knee. It is, in its way, being a footballer, which is what keeps Sam Byram from becoming a pianist. The old adage that if it hurts it's doing you good is not great advice in general, but for Sam Byram specifically, I hope that feeling the burn is keeping him feeling like a footballer. ★彡

(Originally published at The Square Ball)