Aston Villa and England defender Tyrone Mings feared his career was over after 'exhausting all avenues' of recovery following a terrible ACL injury sustained on the opening day of last season.
Mings had three operations to try and fix the problem and was finally rewarded for his perseverance when he played his first Premier League game for 15 months in Wednesday's 3-1 win against Brentford.
Trying to stay calm and collected afterwards, the popular 31-year-old admitted: 'There were times when I genuinely did think I would not be able to recover from this knee injury, such was the severity and complication of it.
'There were a lot of setbacks. In April I was thinking I had pretty much exhausted all avenues of what I can do here.
'There were definitely days when I thought I have been banging my head against a brick wall for a few months and not made any progress.'
Mings' life was turned upside down when he was carried off in the first half of Villa's 5-1 defeat at Newcastle in August 2023 with severe damage to his anterior cruciate ligament.
He couldn't even start his recovery for three months until surgery removed pins from his cartilage.
Muscle wastage left his right leg thinner than his left and he spent three weeks having further rehab in America as recently as the summer.
Though his Champions League comeback last month was marred by conceding a penalty against Bruges by picking up the ball, returning to Premier League action this week was a red-letter day for the 31-year-old who has won 18 caps for England.
He impressed in the centre of defence as Villa achieved their first victory in nine matches.
'The journey back has been absolutely awful. I wondered what was keeping me going; personal pride, family, or dreaming of nights like this. It was a little bit of everything,' he explained.
'I am a big believer in visualisation and had imagined what it would be like to be back at Villa Park, winning.
'The support and all the messages was really heart-warming, I honestly thank the Villa fans for that. It was a good feeling.
'I've had good days, bad days, bad hours. It's meant I can put everything into context and I'll be calmer after a win or a loss.
'When I think of where I have been, bad days in football don't seem too bad.
'I never thought: 'I am never going to play football again' but there were certainly days when I thought, 'will I?' if that makes sense.'
Mings reached his lowest point at Easter when he'd already been out eight months and still wasn't able to train consistently. 'Very stop-start' is how he described it.
Visiting knee specialist Bill Knowles just outside Philadelphia in May gave him an extra motivation and he pushed himself to the point of exhaustion in order to make himself available for Unai Emery this season.
The Villa boss says it's only in the last few weeks that Mings has been able to take part in all the sessions without needing a break.
'It's been a long time,' nodded Emery. 'It's fantastic news not only for Tyrone but the doctors too. It's good for everyone.'