Town defender Axel Tuanzebe has spoken out for the first time about the freak hand injury that kept him out of action for six weeks earlier this season.
Following the 2-2 draw with former club Aston Villa in September, Tuanzebe did not feature again until the Blues’ first Premier League win of the season against Tottenham Hotspur due to an injury reported to be caused by shattered glass while washing up.
"It was just a domestic accident,” Tuanzebe said. "Unfortunately it’s been something that’s highlighted throughout my season this year.
"It’s something I just want to put behind me, move forward and focus on the football. It cost me a few games this season and I want to make up for it.
"It wasn’t a minor issue, it was quite serious. It’s been dealt with and the club have been very supportive throughout that period, the medical staff in particular. I’m just grateful that I still have my thumb intact.
"It’s okay now thanks to a good doctor. They done a miraculous job, thanks to him I still have my thumb. Now it’s time to crack on and really knuckle down for the season.
"That was difficult as a defender when you’ve lost use of your right hand and you’re keeping it in a protective position, but we managed to get through it.
"My first game back was against Tottenham and we got a win in that game. There’s been some positives to pick up from it and we use that positive energy to keep moving forward.
"What happened doesn’t matter anymore. What’s important right now is where we’re at in the season. It’s a very important time for the club to have all hands on deck. We just want to focus on being as impactful as we can for the rest of the remaining games.”
Tuanzebe has subsequently suffered further injury setbacks in the season which has limited him to just 15 Premier League starts, around half of the Blues’ top flight matches this season.
The defender suffered two hamstring problems, both picked up at the City Ground against Nottingham Forest in November and March, issues he does not believe would have occured if not for the previous period of absence.
"If I didn’t have the situation with my thumb, I don’t think I would have missed any football this season,” he said. "That abrupt stop in playing probably triggered the hamstring niggles and that loss of momentum.
"Once you continue playing at a consistent level, it’s easier to maintain that physical robustness. It’s always that change, the drop-off in load or the sharp increase in load that is when you find yourself more susceptible to injury.”
On both occasions, though, Tuanzebe seemed to return sooner than anticipated. Having missed eight league matches for the first injury, he returned after less than a month out from the most recent issue.
Asked how he recovered so quickly, he said: "The energy around this place being wanted and needed, I felt that throughout even the moment that I got the injuries.
"The manager has always said he needed me, even throughout my peers and people around the building are always putting a lot of faith and trust in me. If anything, that helps me really knuckle down on my rehab programme, especially this last one.
"Coming back and playing the games as early as I did was a credit to myself but also the medical staff here, the work we done was very good so I’m very happy to be back as soon as I can.”
Keen to make up for lost time, the 27-year-old added: "It’s been very frustrating, there was a lot more I could have given to the team. A lot of lads here view me as one of the leaders in the team and my presence encourages them to be better within themselves.
"I’m trying to make up for missed games and missed training and try and impact the team as best as I can until the end of the season.
"It’s been good, trying to implement my strengths into the team. I’ve had a shortened rehab programme and I was needed before schedule, but it’s not a problem, I’ll always try and do the best I can for the team.
"Ultimately, we’re in a relegation battle now and it’s going to need everybody giving maximum effort, that’s all we can do and see where we’re at come the end of the season.”
The next clash on the Blues’ unlikely quest comes with a trip to Stamford Bridge on Sunday to face Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea, who are in the midst of an intense battle for Champions League qualification.
Town will be looking to complete their first double over Chelsea since 1978/79 after their only win at Portman Road this season came against the Londoners in the reverse fixture, which Tuanzebe was keen to take inspiration from.
"We can definitely take the positives out of that game and bring it into this game on Sunday,” he said. "We’re not naive enough to think it’s going to be the same game, them at home and they have something to fight for in European football.
"It’s definitely something we need to be aware of. We’ll be doing our homework, seeing the ways we can exploit them and win the game.
"We definitely want to be exploiting the side of them being a youthful team and maybe the inexperience in those types of pressures. Nevertheless, they’re fantastic players and we can’t expect nothing but the best from them come Sunday.
"Playing with freedom and expressing ourselves, that’s when you see the best levels of football. Hopefully that could be something we can achieve come the end of the season.”
One of those players is striker Nicolas Jackson, who has recently returned from a two-month spell out with a hamstring injury of his own.
Tuanzebe said: "It’s not just Nicolas Jackson but all their front players are very good. They’ve got a lot of options to rotate and bring fresh legs on the pitch.
"That will probably be the biggest challenge of all because they can maintain the same quality and the same level of football. Them being young lads but truly they’ve got good quality and we need to find ways we can nullify that.”
Tuanzebe was also asked about his sending off at Aston Villa in February, which saw referee Rob Jones dismiss the DR Congo international for a second yellow card.
The first booking was widely considered to be the wrong decision, but there could be no intervention from VAR with the technology only used to give a second opinion on straight red cards.
"They’re there to do their job,” the former Manchester United defender reflected. "We’ll 100 per cent have disagreements but I’m not there to tell him how to do his job and he’s not there to tell me how to do my job. At the end of the day, all you can do is accept it, move on and hopefully they can look back on things and where they can improve.
"Where they do well we give them praises, but every season we have conversations with the referees, they come into the training ground and we review things where things can change and things could be done in a fairer way.
"They just try to do the best job they can, they’re under pressure as well and under scrutiny at times. All we can expect is they’re going to come up and try and do their best.”