Hector Bellerin has opened up on how his injury nightmare affected his mental health and caused him to turn to drink.
The Arsenal defender spent most of 2019 on the sidelines with a knee injury after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament. He then suffered several hamstring problems as he tried to work his way back to fitness.
Speaking to Timsby Youtube channel, the defender admitted that he used to go out and drink in London as he struggled to cope with being away from the pitch.
'It was the first time that I had got injured like that, and I had friends and teammates that had gone through it before, I had my family next to me, but I didn't know exactly what was going to happen to me,' he said.
'I talk about an experience when I came back and I wasn't really training and I started going out a lot.
'I started drinking and all this stuff and you know for a footballer that's not what you're supposed to say but it's the truth.
'We have our issues, we have our mental health problems. And when football, which is basically your identity gets taken out of you, we find it difficult.
'Obviously London is a town that offers a lot of distractions and it's really easy when you don't feel you have a responsibility – obviously I knew I had to recover, but I didn't have to train or play – my mind kind of just went elsewhere.'
The Spaniard has been in and out of the Arsenal team this seasn and there are suggestions he could leave the club this summer.
However, the 26-year-old added that he has a lot to thank Arsenal's coaching staff for after they helped get him back on the right path.
'I was lucky enough to have players and coaches who knew what I was doing, and they said 'look Hector, that's not the right way to do it', and I felt so lucky about that.
'But also I'm not ashamed of it, I feel like it's what happened to me and it's just the way I was feeling and for me that was the best way of coping with my feelings, which is obviously not the best anyway, you don't help anything, you just delay it.
'But that's how I felt like doing then, and I thought I could get away with it and I learned so much from it. Now the last thing I do when I have an injury is drink because I know how bad that is. Sometimes you just don't care or it's difficult.'