Ghana right-back Andy Yiadom says he is grateful to finally be back in action for Reading.
Yiadom on Wednesday completed his first full fixture of the season against Brentford since the opening weekend of the Sky Bet Championship.
He slotted straight back in at right-back – and he discussed his route to recovery and the way he has been keeping himself engaged and involved throughout, and making important contributions, despite being on the sidelines for so long.
“I started against Derby on the first game of the season – then I got injured,” Yiadom explained. “I came back against Stoke in November and unfortunately broke down then.
“It has been extremely tough, and frustrating. But I’ve had a goal in mind and I’m grateful to have achieved that goal – which was to start and get through 90 minutes, with the help of the medical team.
“I’m feeling a bit leggy, a bit tired… but I’ve been looking forward to having that feeling! To finish 90 minutes and have those aches and pains. So I’m grateful to have played today.
“The medical team have done extremely well. It’s taken a lot of graft, there have been a few setbacks… but I’m here now and I’m happy to have played 90 minutes.
“I’ve kept busy, been around the team and tried to help people out. At the end of the day, we’re a team and we’re in a really good position. So anyone that’s on the pitch or on the bench need people to have an arm around them, and that’s what I’ve tried to do.
“Whoever has been injured or not playing, when someone else comes in to fill that position, everyone is there to help them and give them some encouragement. That’s personally what I’ve been trying to do. Tom Holmes has done extremely well – everyone who has come in has put a shift in, and that’s good for us as a team to go forward.
“Now I’ll take it game by game. I’ve banked 90 minutes today, and I’ll see what the future holds.”
“We set out to get three points,” Yiadom continued. “We started well and got ahead with the penalty. Even when they equalised we stuck to our task. But unfortunately they edged it towards the last five minutes of the game.
“It’s extremely frustrating – we had done really well. Not many teams that play Brentford will put in the kind of performance that we did. We wanted the three points, we didn’t get them… so that’s that. We’ve got another game on Saturday against Millwall and so we’ll want to get it right and get three points.
“We don’t want to dwell on today. It’s that time of the season where you just want to get points on the board; every game is like a cup final. Millwall on Saturday is a cup final so we’ll go in for the win. We’ll take the good bits of today into that game.”
Watch Andy Yiadom’s full interview below:
https://twitter.com/ReadingFC/status/1359794710534119426
