Gibbs: The moment I thought my career was over

Arsenal’s Gibbs on the moment he thought his career was over Arsenal’s Kieran Gibbs has acquired something of an ‘injury-prone’ label but, like his teammate Abou Diaby, he believes that he can trace the majority of his injury problems back to the time when he suffered a broken bone. A tackle by Standard Liege’s Eliaquim Mangala in November 2009 left Gibbs with a broken metatarsal which ended his season. Since then he has made just 30 appearances in the league in two years but, speaking to the Arsenal magazine this month, Gibbs believes all of his problems stem from that one incident. Gibbs said Breaking my foot triggered quite a lot of my injuries. It took me eight or nine months to get over that injury, which turned out to be really serious in the end. I remember the doctor ringing me. He said he had bad news, and I thought he was going to tell me I wouldn’t be able to play again. In fact, he told me I needed to have more surgery, and funnily enough the boost that gave me was massive, Coming from a moment when you think that’s it, you’re finished, to one where you realise you can carry in it such a great feeling, a massive relief, and I used it as motivation to approach my recovery positively. Before that I’d never really had injuries, but in the next couple of years I had quite a few and it was really frustrating. I did my knee and rolled my ankle, and later on I had a hernia. I just got on with it and never really listened to any comments. I just knew the most important thing was that I got back and let people judge me on my football. Gibbs has 15 starts this season in the Premier League, the same number he managed in the whole of last season. In total he has 20 starts in all competitions, again, the same number he managed in the entire 2011/12 season.