'People are probably confused and think that I disappeared'

Joe Morrell has not played for 492 days because of a knee injury but is raring to go - once he finds a club

- Ben Fisher

"It's been like snakes and ladders," says the midfielder Joe Morrell, detailing how a hellish 16 months has proved the most difficult duel of his career. An innocuous click in his left knee, a setback in the gym while on holiday in Miami and the onset of arthrofibrosis – a condition where scar tissue builds between joints – and suddenly 492 days have passed since his last appearance, for Portsmouth in a League One match at Oxford.

He had just celebrated his 100th game for the club en route to the Championship. "People are probably quite confused and think I have disappeared. Everyone forgets about you."

An unwanted glimpse into retirement and time on the football scrapheap have led to some dark days during Morrell's rehabilitation, which he has done predominantly at Portsmouth, where his contract expired last summer.

He rewinds to this January and crying 12 months after the initial injury, swallowed by the sense time was slipping away as another milestone in his recovery drifted from view. September had turned into January and then it dawned he would not return last season.

"I had that feeling of knowing I was going to burst into tears. I had a shower, got in the car, drove around the corner from the training ground and then I had to pull over. It was a kind of release. I care about football so much... It has been unbelievably tough."