Liam Millar says the feeling he’ll get when he walks back on the pitch for the first time since recovering from a knee injury will be indescribable.
Millar has not played a game since rupturing his ACL in a game against Burnley in October, but is closing in on a return to action after eight months of gruelling rehab work.
A return to first-team football is still a little while off for the popular Canadian, who is not yet able to be involved in contact training as he awaits more results on his progress, which are expected towards the end of the month.
Another benefit, if it can be called that, is that Millar would usually have spent much of the summer away on international duty, so to be part of a club’s pre-season camp is something of a novelty for the 25-year-old.
“It’s good and coming along nicely,” the Canadian told Hull Live at the club’s training camp in Riva. “All on track, hopefully just going away, just trying to get my knee to the rotational bits again. Hopefully, we’ll be training roughly sometime soon, and then we’ll go from there.
“I’ve not been on a pre-season camp in a long time, so it’s nice just to get away, to be around the lads. Being out and away from the team for a long time with injury, it’s nice to be around the lads again, reconnect and go through the stuff that you normally go through as a team. It’s been nice to do that again.”
Eight months after that season-defining moment against the Clarets, Millar is back in training. However, the club’s medical staff are carefully monitoring his workload, and he can’t yet take part in contact work.
“My knee is in a great place. I’m still not at the nine-month mark yet, so I still have a little bit of time, but I’m close, I’m getting really close. I’m looking forward to playing again,” he continued.
“It’s all I want to do, the closer I get, the more I want to play. I’m just trying to get back as safely and as ready as possible.
“I didn’t really get a break, not so much time off, because when you have a knee injury, it’s a full-time recovery thing. I went away to Italy with Mo (Belloumi). We were recovering there at a rehab facility, and it was really good.
“I think we both made really big steps going there. The way that we both move was definitely a big thing. I think before we left, we were still a little bit nervous, but now, after that period of time in Italy, we’re both feeling very confident. I can only speak for myself, but it looks like he is as well.
“Although I had a little bit of rest, technically, I still had time off with my injury. I had to focus on rehab and whatnot, but I still had a little bit of time off just chilling a little bit, so it’s all good.”
While Belloumi went to Dubai and Eliot Matazo back to Belgium, Millar’s surgery and recovery has been done in the UK, with the exciting winger a regular around the training ground in the second half of last season.
He said: “The reason why I stayed here (at Cottingham) and did all my rehab here was because I wanted to be with the lads. I wanted to support as much as I can and do as much as I possibly can from the outside,” he explained.
“When you’re coming in and no one’s there, it’s a little bit boring and whatnot, but I know at the end of the day that I’m coming in to do my rehab to make sure that I’m ready to help the lads when I come back playing. At the end of the day, it’s more about the long-term goal than the short-term vision.”
Millar admits the thought of getting back into the thick of Championship action excites him, even if he’s cautious about not getting too far ahead.
“That’s what gets me going in the morning, you know, like when I think about it,” he said. “Multiple times I’ve had visions of me coming on the pitch with that feeling of being on the pitch again, it gives me goosebumps.
“That’s the goal, but I think it’s really important for me just to focus on the little small time goals first and to get through those, getting my strength where I need it to be and then get through contact training and then get through playing Under-21’s games and then get to that point.
“If I just start focusing on the ‘I can’t wait for this moment of being with the team again,’ I’m just going to push myself, I think, a little bit too much. I don’t want to do that because I’ve come so far.
“I’ve been injured now for eight months, so there’s no need for me to rush it now at this point because I’ve already gone through it for eight months.
“What’s an extra month or an extra one month and a half or two months on top of eight months? It’s nothing, I’ve already been through that, so for me it’s just more about being patient and just riding it out. Making sure that I’m ready to go and train because the last thing I want to do is redo my knee or do something else and be out for longer, because I want to help the team as much as I can.
“Watching the games last season was very difficult for me because I felt like I could do so much, but I couldn’t do anything.
“It was really difficult for me to watch, so the last thing I want to do is be in that situation again. I’d rather take my time and really just make sure I’m ready.”
You can watch a video interview with Liam Millar right here
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