BEN’S LATE INTERVENTION
Wilmot pleased to put injury woe behind him to play part in sealing Stoke’s Championship safety
BEN Wilmot is relieved on two fronts after getting back into the starting XI to help Stoke City to Championship safety.
It has been a stop-start campaign on an individual level for last season’s player of the year with a knee injury in October – he collided with a post while sliding to block a shot against Southampton – restricting him to 22 league starts.
He has spent time on the bench too, but returned to the middle of defence over the last fortnight, playing alongside Michael Rose and Luke Mcnally in a must-notlose draw at Sheffield Wednesday and then next to Mcnally in crucial wins and clean sheets against Plymouth and Southampton.
Those seven points have secured Stoke’s status going into this weekend’s final game against Bristol City – and given Wilmot, aged 24, a boost too heading into his first proper break in a couple of years after spending last summer recovering from a painful back fracture.
“This year has been a frustrating one for me,” he said.
“I felt like I started the season picking up from where I left off last year. It felt like I was playing some of the best football I ever have and then the injury was a real kick in the teeth.
“It was just an injury that I could do nothing about, an impact injury, and it killed my momentum. It’s actually taken me a lot longer to find my feet than I thought it would.
“But I think the last two games I’ve felt more like myself again and back to where I feel like I need to be and should be, which is really good. I would have been frustrated going into the summer without putting in a couple of performances that I know I’m capable of doing. It’s good to get a couple of those performances in.”
He added: “It’s not great for any player when you’re sat out and watching, especially in the situation we’ve been in. You want to try to help the team and you’re sort of sat there feeling helpless. But we put in a load of good performances and results in while I wasn’t playing so that made it easier – but every player wants to play.”
Stoke have been polling for this season’s player of the year and Wilmot expects he will be handing over the trophy to midfielder Wouter Burger, who joined last summer from Basel, while Bae Junho, another main contender, should be one to watch next term.
Wilmot said: “I think Burgs will win it this year. I think he’s been consistent all year, played a lot of games and he’s done really well.
“Junho will be the special mention.
“It took him some time to settle in, which was obviously going to happen when you move half way across the world and not speaking English, but from January, February time you can see he’s really kicked on. Over the last month or two he’s looked like a real player. He’ll be massive for us next season.”
He added: “My Korean is useless. I tried to use Google Translate at the start but now he can understand a lot, pretty much everything you say. The communication back he’s still learning but he’s getting good at it and still having multiple lessons a week, working hard, and he’s a good lad.”