Hector Bellerin has disclosed how he turned to booze during his long-term injury hell.
The Spaniard is one of the oldest and most senior players at Arsenal at the moment and has been linked with a move away.
He joined the club a decade ago as a 16-year-old from Barcelona’s La Masia academy and broke into the Gunners first XI as expected.
He has served them very well since he has been at the Emirates, but he has seen his time in London marred by some gruesome injuries that have kept him on the sidelines for different durations.
He ruptured a cruciate ligament in 2019 and had to battle different hamstring problems when he returned to fitness.
During that time, he was hardly seen near their matchday squad and he has now revealed how terrible that time was for him.
The brave Spaniard opened up to getting addicted to booze as he battled to get back to train with the boys.
Bellerin said to the Timsby YouTube channel: “It was the first time that I had got injured like that, and I had friends and team-mates that had gone through it before, I had my family next to me, but I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen to me.
“I talk about an experience when I came back and I wasn’t really training, and I started going out a lot, I started drinking and all this stuff and you know for a footballer that’s not what you’re supposed to say but it’s the truth.
“We have our issues, we have our mental health problems. And when football, which is basically your identity gets taken out of you, we find it difficult.
“Obviously London is a town that offers a lot of distractions and it’s really easy when you don’t feel you have a responsibility – obviously I knew I had to recover, but I didn’t have to train or play – my mind kind of just went elsewhere.”