Former Manchester United star Ashley Young has disclosed that he needs a hip replacement months after announcing he will be retiring aged 40
In a chat with High Performance Podcast, Young stated that the joint pain became so severe that he was unable to train for three months during the final stretch of his career. He previously attempted to manage the severe joint discomfort with injections before concluding that surgery is necessary.
“I went down on my hip in November and had an injection. I have always said to myself ‘If my body is saying you need injections, there is a problem, you need to think about retiring’,” Young said.
“Basically I need a hip replacement, in November I was told I would need it in about 10 years time. I got to January and was due to have another injection which would have got me through to the end of the season, as I was saying to the specialist ‘I know it is painful, but I want to make sure I do everything I can possibly do to help the team’. About a week before I am about to have the injection, I go down on it in training and I am like ‘this is worse, I know it is a lot worse’.”
“Basically I am bone on bone from years of overuse. The physios and doctors have said to me, particularly this season ‘have you had a problem with your hip before’ and I was like ‘No’, they were like ‘are you sure because you are basically bone on bone, there is no cartilage there, that is why you are getting so much pain’.”
“From January to the end of the season, I literally had two or three months where I couldn’t train it was that painful. I saw the specialist again and said ‘I’m not going out like this’. He said he didn’t want to give me another injection as it would weaken the area.”
“I asked him ‘are you telling me I can’t play football again, you can say it if you want, trust me if I get an opportunity to be back on the pitch, I’ll be back on the pitch’. The last two months of the season I was training every day and he was like ‘it is not possible, you shouldn’t be training’. Medically I don’t think I should have been out on the pitch but I made sure I was available for the last three games of the season. I travelled with the team and was with them every week. It would have been incredible to come onto the pitch for the last game of the season but for me to train like I did that week and for us to be promoted on the last day of the season, it was fitting.”