Portsmouth defender follows Cristiano Ronaldo down pathway embraced by Pep Guardiola as he looks to future
Ronaldo, Guardiola, Nadal & Co have embraced the treatment - now the Pompey defender is hoping it will solve his injury woes last season.
Jordan Williams believes he can look forward with optimism next season and fulfil his Pompey promise.
And the defender has detailed how he’s undergone a treatment used by the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, tennis star Rafael Nadal and embraced by Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola to put his injury struggles to bed.
Barnsley signing fit and firing in pre-season
Williams’ maiden season at Fratton Park was restricted to 22 appearances, in a campaign where the right-back showcased his quality but was also hindered by fitness issues.
The 25-year-old was hit by a hip problem at Cardiff last October and then suffered separate hamstring issues against Plymouth and West Brom, before a left hamstring problem curtailed his season against Watford in April.
Williams has been putting in the rehab graft across the summer to ensure he’s at the same level as his team-mates, when returning to work last month.
He said: ‘It’s good to be back with the group training after being out and having the closed season off.
‘It’s given me time to reflect and try not to have that happen again.
‘I’ve rehabbed through the summer and got away for a bit which broke things up.
‘I’ve come back firing and I’m back for training, so it’s all good - I came back for testing and have been there since day one.
‘It’s been nine weeks from the injury to the first day of pre-season, and it was an eight-week injury. So I had an extra week I used that to get away and clear my head.
‘It definitely wasn’t the season I anticipated. I wanted to play more minutes and stay fitter for longer.
‘But that’s part of football sometimes and you can’t put a finger on the reason why it happens.
‘I’ve tried to do a few things differently with the injury this team, so hopefully it works.'
Pompey have looked extensively at the factors behind Williams suffering differing hamstring issues last term, which has led to the Barnsley undergoing a treatment called platelet rich plasma (PRP) therapy.
It’s a process followed by some of the sporting world’s biggest stars over the past decade or so, which uses the patient’s own platelets to heal injured tissue.
Manchester City boss Guardiola is a big believer in the benefits of the treatment through leading Spanish surgeon, Dr Ramon Cugat.
Williams is upbeat it’s a process which is going to aid him, as he looks for a big second season at PO4.
PRP therapy treatment used by Williams and some of world’s best sports stars
He added: ‘The first time I saw a specialist, but this time I’ve gone down a bit of a different route.
‘I’ve had blood taken out and put back in. They take it from the arm, spin the blood cells and then take the good blood, get rid of the bad and reinject it into the muscle to help it heal stronger and faster.
‘It’s meant to make the muscle stronger and recover better.
‘I’ve seen it done on other players before, so we thought we’d try it.
‘It’s not like the injuries have even been the same hamstring, which makes it even weirder.
‘If anything you’d think the one you’d just done would be weaker and you’d do it again, but it’s not worked out like that.
‘So we’ve questioned a lot of things and even taken bloods to see if I’m low on anything.
‘But nothing has cropped up, so we have to just take it as being unlucky and done things differently.
‘Now I just want the repetition of the games. When you do one injury you could end up playing catch-up, you don’t have the minutes and you’re not fully fit. That can then make you prone to breaking down.
‘I feel fine in my body and we’ve done tests before games to make sure the muscle is strong. It’s fine, so I want to push on now.’