Sitting in TSB studios on Tuesday night, needing something to help us pretend Leeds weren’t actually playing Manchester City, we switched over to Norwich’s game against Aston Villa at half-time. It was hardly a more attractive option, but my ears pricked up when I heard the commentator mention Sam Byram’s name, just in time for the man himself to go steaming into Tyrone Mings’ ankles with a tackle that would have Jack Grealish asking physios to amputate his leg. Yellow card. Crack on. It’s good to have you back, Sam!

Byram was playing his first game of competitive senior football in an Adam Forshawesque 664 days. Like Forshaw, Byram was thought to have suffered a relatively innocuous injury when he pulled his hamstring against Liverpool in February 2020. Despite feeling “hesitant” about joining Norwich — sporting director Stuart Webber banged on about how much he loves Leeds to try convincing Byram — he was playing better than in-vogue full-backs Jamal Lewis (wanted by Liverpool) and Max Aarons (nearly joined Barcelona), establishing himself at left-back. But there was an ominous warning when Byram told manager Daniel Farke it felt “unbelievably painful, like a knife.” Surgery was required, but the problem only got worse when Byram developed a cyst on the bone anchor used to repair the initial hamstring tear, meaning further injections and more surgery.

It was a cruel continuation of Byram’s rotten luck with injuries, tracing back to his first season with Leeds. Neil Warnock had never heard of Byram until he was asking Neil Redfearn for any decent right-backs in Leeds’ academy. “I’d got called up for Leeds’ pre-season tour and done well, and then eight months later, I’d played every game in the league,” Byram told The Athletic. He actually played every league game bar the final two, by which point he’d suffered a hip injury that prevented him from playing for England Under-20s at the World Cup that summer, and disrupted much of his following season with Leeds. Warnock’s desperate reliance on Byram is a warning for those of us yearning for Marcelo Bielsa to unleash Joffy Gelhardt full time on Premier League defences.

Perhaps I’m interpreting this wrong, but I detect a trace of Colin criticism when Byram suggests to The Athletic a lack of intensity in training at his former clubs meant he wasn’t fit enough for games at the weekend. “You see clubs where you don’t really do many sprints throughout the week and then you’re expected to go out on a match day and do ten fifty-yard sprints,” he said. “A lot of training is short stuff, and then you’re not conditioned for a match day, so I think what we’re doing [at Norwich] definitely helps.”

The constant churn of managers at Elland Road — Byram played under seven in three-and-a-half seasons — as well as Massimo Cellino’s offer of a new contract on lower money prompted a transfer to West Ham, where his frustrations continued. Carrying over seven yellow cards from the Championship, he played four Premier League games before completing the set required for a two-game ban. Upon his return, he was concussed, before three serious injuries in the next two seasons wiped out a chunk of his career.

Dropping back down to the Championship on loan at Nottingham Forest was meant to be a fresh start, but Byram lasted three games before injuring his knee. Again, it was thought he would only need a few weeks. It turned into eight months, the first six weeks Byram spent “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.”

The constant setbacks have taught Byram to ignore social media. The 28-year-old Norwich player’s Twitter profile still describes him as a 22-year-old ‘professional footballer for west ham from York living in London’. “You feel almost a sense of worthlessness. You can’t give anything. To people on the outside, you’re always injured and they ask what’s going on. You get pressure from everywhere. I try not to let what other people say bother me. I rarely interact that much on social media. But it’s not a case that people criticise your ability. 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. Like anything, you can let it bother you or use it to fuel your hunger. You either learn from it and deal with it, or it can have a negative effect on you.”

Rehabilitation can be “mind-numbing”, in Byram’s words. Watching Netflix and playing Xbox quickly became boring, so he taught himself the piano by watching YouTube tutorials. Trying to keep as physically active as possible, he bought a wheelchair, spending twenty minutes a day wheeling himself up and down a corridor in his apartment building. “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.” While Byram was recovering from his latest injury, Daniel Farke told The Athletic he tried to cheer him up by making jokes around the training ground, but started to give him space as his rehab continued indefinitely. “Sometimes you also get the feeling he wants to be left alone a little bit so he has the impetus for his rehab. You need to make sure not to annoy him every day with a question, ‘How is it today?’”

Again there are similarities with Forshaw. It’s impossible not to feel happy for them coming back, knowing (without ever really knowing) what both players have put themselves through physically and mentally to return to the sport that constitutes such a large part of their identity. Byram’s return to Norwich’s first team came in difficult circumstances. They had nine players missing through injury or Covid against Aston Villa, becoming ten when Ozan Kabak had to come off. Despite only playing 71 minutes for Norwich’s Under-23s, Byram came on at half-time in central midfield. Dean Smith says he had seen Byram play that role for Leeds, which I’m fairly certain he’s making up, but Byram got through the game, and his tackle on Mings might explain what David Batty was teaching him in the poster of Leeds’ 2015/16 season ticket campaign.

Since Byram’s last injury, Norwich have been relegated, come back up, sacked Farke, and are now seem on their way back to the Championship under Smith. Even if Norwich do get relegated this season, Byram’s campaign will be considered a success if he can start playing more regularly again. Despite sitting on the sidelines for so long, he has a few things to teach his teammates. As captain Ben Gibson said after Byram’s return against Villa, “He is an example of the mentality we need.” ⬢