George Honeyman on being sidelined for seven months with muscle tears – Millwall midfielder ready to feature

George Honeyman is hoping to end a seven-month wait for first-team football by featuring for Millwall in tomorrow’s Championship match at Preston North End.

The 29-year-old midfielder has not kicked a ball competitively for the Lions since suffering a grade C hamstring tear at Hull City in April.

Honeyman also underwent shoulder surgery at that point when it was determined he would not be fit before the end of the season – even if the South Londoners qualified for the play-offs and reached the final.

A summer of rehab followed, only for the former Sunderland captain to then suffer a thigh injury in a pre-season friendly at Gillingham in July.
Honeyman did return to Millwall’s matchday squad before the international break and is determined to start contributing.

“It’s by far the longest I’ve ever been out,” he told the South London Press. “I have had six or eight-weekers before. I had an ankle operation that kept me out for a couple of months when I was at Hull but, apart from that, I have been really lucky.

“I have never had a muscle injury before in my career and now I’ve had two big ones back to back. The lucky thing was that I did it at the end of last season and then at the beginning of this season.

“Being out for six to seven months, I haven’t missed as many games because of the summer. I have to look at it in a fortunate way, like that.

“When you first get on the bench then you’re just delighted to be back. But when you’re on it a couple more times then you just want to get on and help the lads. There is only so long I can keep being sensible before I want to get out there, running about and tackling people.

“I feel really confident in myself now that I have a couple of weeks of training under my belt. I don’t think I’ll be able to play 90 minutes on Saturday, but if it was 20 or 30 minutes, I would feel quite comfortable.

“Hopefully I will be back on the green stuff in a short space of time.”

Honeyman’s thigh injury occurred before the match against the Gills but he did not think it was anything to unduly worry about at the time.

“I didn’t know if it was an aching pain you get from pre-season and I had been out for around four months at this point,” said Honeyman. “So I hoped, rather than anything else, that it was just my body getting back into training.

“I started the Gillingham game and I just didn’t feel right from the start. I went to run down the line once and my thigh went tight again.

“I thought I was being sensible by not trying to play through it, but I went for a scan and it was another grade three C tear in my thigh.

“I was devastated by the news. I sacrificed my summer to be in and worked hard to get back. It was nice being back with the lads and then it was:

‘You’re out until the October international break’.

“When you hear that in July, and when I didn’t feel it was that bad either, it seems an awful long way away.

“My thigh never felt as bad as what it was diagnosed with. But you listen to the experts and you do as you’re told.

“I don’t feel as though it’s going to take me too long to get back into the swing of things.

“I might make a rusty pass in the first couple of games, but hopefully, I have got those out of the way in training so when it comes to the game, I can hit the ground running and contribute to the lads and the team.”