I got badly injured in Israel ... but at least it made everyone forget that I was sent off!
SAYS JOHN SOUTTAR
WHEN his body was screaming at him to stop, sit down and give up, it was a patriotic sense of duty that prompted John Souttar to press on.
Now, almost three months after he decided to play on through injury for Scotland, the 22-year-old centre-half can smile ruefully at the pain caused by that stubborn streak on an October night in Israel.
And he can even laugh at the notion that, because the hip injury sustained in only his third international appearance was so serious, many people will have forgotten that his attempts to soldier on culminated in him being sent off in a 2-1 UEFA Nations League loss.
Souttar, who received sympathetic calls from the entire Scotland coaching staff once the extent of his problem had been diagnosed, is thankfully just another couple of weeks away from his comeback for Hearts.
And as he reflected on that international match which saw him suffer the double whammy of a damaging injury and a second yellow card after tangling with Israeli forward Munas Dabbur, he revealed: ‘It was towards the end of the game. I had felt it (his hip) in the first half. I knew it had gone.
‘I think Charlie Mulgrew was coming off in the second half — and I was coming off before I got sent off.
‘In hindsight I wish I had come off at half-time. But you learn from it.
‘It’s probably something I’ll look back on at the end of my career and say that I should have gone off. I’ll know what to do if it happens again.
‘But that’s easier said than done. It was only my third cap for my country and I thought: “I can’t come off here, I need to play.”
‘Charlie’s had so many caps and he’s been there, seen it and done it, so I was of the opinion that I couldn’t come off.
‘I was just in the international door, so I wasn’t wanting to go off injured at half-time.
‘I might have gotten away with one, though, because a lot of people have forgotten I was sent off against Israel!’
When Souttar was injured, Hearts were sitting top of the Premiership. Then came a personnel crisis that left the Jambos incredibly thin in key areas — especially at centre-half, with club captain Christophe Berra already sidelined at that point. At least misery had company, as Uche Ikpeazu, Steven Naismith and Jimmy Dunne all endured spells in the treatment room.
Souttar, who is staying behind to work with physios Mikey Williams and Craig Maitland while the rest of the first-team squad jet off for warm weather training in Spain today, said: ‘There have been a lot of people in the physio room.
‘It’s good for people rehabilitating, but not for the team.
‘It was a weird one, seeing so many big players coming into the treatment room. Especially when Jimmy Dunne came in.
‘Hopefully, I’ll be back involved towards the end of this month. I’ll hopefully be back in training in a week.
‘I’ve been through it before. Everything was going well and then you get hit with an injury like this. I’m sure I’ll come back better than I was.’
Souttar could only watch from afar as Alex McLeish’s Scots eventually clinched a Euro 2020 play-off place and Nations League promotion with a dramatic 3-2 win over the Israelis at Hampden.
‘I was buzzing watching Scotland get into the play-offs because, firstly, I’m a fan,’ he said.
‘It was big for us to do that because there’s always a lot of doom and gloom around the country. When something good happens, you need to enjoy it.
‘Then there was the Hearts thing (the loss of form) — but we’ve now won the derby and that’s massive.
‘If you don’t end well (before the winter break), it’s a long wait until January. That (win over Hibs) was huge and just gives the whole club a big lift going into the second half of the season.’
Souttar is sure to be in McLeish’s thoughts as soon as he returns to full fitness.
‘As soon as I got injured, Alex McLeish, Peter Grant and James McFadden all phoned me. They were all really positive, which helped me a lot,’ he said.
‘I went out to Portugal to see Gauldy (Ryan Gauld) and the gaffer phoned me, which was good.
‘That meant a lot, knowing they were there for me and that it meant a lot to them, me playing through injury.’
Gauld, a friend since their days coming through the ranks at Dundee United, is set to join Hibs on a six-month loan from Sporting Lisbon — making for a tantalising head-to-head soon enough.
Souttar laughed: ‘It was nice to see Ryan, although I didn’t tell him to sign for the other half of Edinburgh!
‘The friendship might be ruined now but it’s good to have him back over here.
‘I think he’s grown up as a person over there. I haven’t seen a lot of him football-wise.
‘You might see a different player to the one that went over there.’