James Maddison Reflects on a Tough Year After Injury
James Maddison sits back in his chair and laughs when he calls it “the toughest year of my life”. The smile only half hides the strain.
A ruptured anterior cruciate ligament last August wiped out almost all of his 2025-26 season with Tottenham Hotspur. Months of rehab, hours in the gym, long days at the training ground without a ball at his feet. And then, at home, five children aged four and under, including a second set of twins arriving mid-recovery.
“We’ve been in the trenches,” he tells Kelly Somers on The Football Interview, which returns to BBC One at 12:45 every Saturday during the Premier League season and is also available on BBC iPlayer, BBC Football YouTube and the BBC Sport website and app.
A serious knee injury would have been enough on its own. Maddison’s partner being pregnant at the same time turned his life into a blur of nappies, sleepless nights and hospital visits – both for scans and for surgery.
“I needed that positive distraction of my partner being pregnant and having to be there for her and forget about myself, even though I was going through a traumatic experience through my knee,” he says.
The house became chaos.
“A lot of nappies flying about, a lot of accidents at home, but it’ll all be worth it,” he says. “We still love it. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
A year away – and a son who thought Dad had left
The injury did not just take him away from the pitch. It took him away from his eldest son’s matchday memories.
“I missed a year of football, and a year in a child's life – from three and a half to four and a half – it's obviously massive,” Maddison says.
Leo, his eldest, stopped seeing his dad in a Spurs shirt. Stopped going to games. Stopped hearing his name read out at the stadium.
“He couldn't even remember over a year ago when he was at all the games,” Maddison admits.
At one point, Leo assumed his dad had left Tottenham altogether.
“It would be nice for him to come to the games again and actually remember Dad playing instead of just Dad sat at home watching him with a machine on his knee.”
Watching Spurs suffer from the sofa
If the domestic whirlwind was exhausting, what unfolded at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium brought its own kind of pain.
Spurs endured a grim campaign, surviving only on the final day and finishing two points above the relegation zone. For a creative midfielder sidelined by injury, it was a special kind of torture.
“We probably struggled a little bit for creativity and I'm watching the games thinking, 'what would I be doing there?',” he says.
He could only sit, strapped to his rehab equipment, and imagine the passes he might have played, the spaces he might have found. The team were fighting for survival; he was fighting just to walk and turn sharply again.
De Zerbi’s reset: football, tactics – and a night out
The mood began to shift in March. Roberto de Zerbi walked through the doors as head coach and, as Maddison tells it, immediately changed the temperature at the club.
"He's very clever. He's very tactical. He's obsessed with football, you can see that," Maddison says.
The Italian’s reputation is built on intricate patterns and detailed structures. Yet his first priority at Spurs was not to drown the players in new instructions.
"But to be honest, when he first came in – in comparison to pre-season and what we're training now – he didn't want to make it too complicated. He just wanted us to get the love back for playing football."
So he did something simple. Human. He booked a team meal.
One rule: enjoy yourselves.
The 29-year-old recalls De Zerbi telling the squad: "We're all going to be drinking alcohol, we're all going to be having a good night."
No analysis. No video. Just players and staff, eating, drinking, talking.
“He wanted us to have a night where we all just relax,” Maddison says. “That feeling that we got made everyone feel more knitted together, straight away.”
On the bench in slippers
De Zerbi’s second big move with Maddison was just as unconventional.
The midfielder was still working his way back, nowhere near ready to play. Maddison expected to be kept at arm’s length from matchday until his knee was fully trusted again.
Instead, De Zerbi put him on the bench.
"I was almost like, 'I'm not ready to play yet, boss'," Maddison says.
The response stunned him.
"But he said no. He said I can come on the bench in my slippers if I want. He just wanted me around the group and he thought that would benefit the group."
For a player who had spent months feeling detached, it landed.
“I took that as a massive compliment and just acted as if I was part of the bench, part of the team,” he says.
Spurs eventually pulled themselves clear of danger. Maddison will not claim he was the reason, but he knows what it meant to be back in the dugout, even in club tracksuit rather than full kit.
“I'm not saying that's the reason why, but we managed to steer clear of the danger, which was a good feeling.”
Back on the pitch – and looking ahead
The real step came on 11 May, away at Leeds. Maddison finally made his return, almost nine months after the ACL rupture that had blown his season apart.
He has not been risked in pre-season so far, the club refusing to rush a player who remains central to their plans. The frustration is there, but so is the determination.
“I'm working so hard to try and be fully fit and available for the majority of the season,” he says.
The target is simple. No caveats, no drama.
"I want just a fully fit, healthy season where I can just enjoy football. Because if I'm fully fit and I'm healthy, then I know what I'm capable of. And I know that I can affect games more than a lot of players in this league. So, let's just hope for that."
From nappies flying around the house to the roar of a packed stadium, Maddison knows exactly what he wants this season: not survival, not sympathy, but the chance to show, over 38 games, just how much Spurs missed him.
