James Maddison: A Year of Recovery and Family Chaos

James Maddison laughs when he calls it “the trenches”. It doesn’t sound like much of an exaggeration.

Five children aged four and under. Two sets of twins. A serious knee injury. A lost season. All under one roof while his right knee slowly recovered from a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament.

The Tottenham midfielder sits down with Kelly Somers for the first episode of the new series of The Football Interview, which returns on BBC One at 12:45 every Saturday during the Premier League season, and is also on BBC iPlayer, BBC Football YouTube and the BBC Sport website and app. The chat quickly turns from tactics and returns to play, to nappies and night feeds.

“A lot of nappies flying about, a lot of accidents at home, but it'll all be worth it,” Maddison says. “We still love it. I wouldn't change it for the world.”

A year lost – and a knee rebuilt

Maddison’s ACL rupture last August ripped him out of the 2025-26 campaign. At 29, he missed almost the entire season, forced to watch from the sofa as Spurs flirted with disaster and only secured survival on the final day, finishing two points above the relegation zone.

He calls it “the toughest year of his life”. Not just the physical grind of rehab, but the mental toll of feeling powerless while his club struggled.

“We probably struggled a little bit for creativity and I'm watching the games thinking, 'what would I be doing there?',” he says. The playmaker who usually dictates the rhythm was reduced to an armchair analyst, a machine strapped to his knee while his team fought to stay in the league.

At home, life was no quieter. During his recovery, his partner gave birth to their second set of twins.

“I needed that positive distraction of my partner being pregnant and having to be there for her and forget about myself, even though I was going through a traumatic experience through my knee,” he tells Somers.

That “distraction” came with sleepless nights and chaos, but also perspective. Football was on hold; family wasn’t.

‘Dad doesn’t play for Spurs anymore’

The injury didn’t just change how Maddison saw the game. It changed how his eldest son saw him.

“I missed a year of football, and a year in a child's life – from three and a half to four and a half – it's obviously massive,” he says.

Leo, his oldest, had been a regular at games before the injury. Then suddenly, Dad was no longer on the pitch. He was on the sofa.

“He couldn't even remember over a year ago when he was at all the games,” Maddison explains. At one point, Leo even assumed his father had left Spurs altogether.

For a player who thrives on the big stage, that stung. The motivation now is clear.

“It would be nice for him to come to the games again and actually remember Dad playing instead of just Dad sat at home watching him with a machine on his knee.”

De Zerbi’s reset: beer, bonding and a bench role

On the pitch, Spurs needed a reset of their own. That arrived in March, when Roberto de Zerbi walked through the doors at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

The Italian has a reputation: intense, meticulous, obsessed with detail. Maddison saw all of that up close.

“He's very clever. He's very tactical. He's obsessed with football, you can see that,” he says.

Yet De Zerbi’s first move wasn’t to drown the squad in new systems. It was to strip things back.

“When he first came in – in comparison to pre-season and what we're training now – he didn't want to make it too complicated. He just wanted us to get the love back for playing football.”

So he did something simple. Human. He took them out.

One of his first acts was to organise a team meal – and crucially, alcohol was allowed.

The 29-year-old recalls De Zerbi’s message to the players: “We're all going to be drinking alcohol, we're all going to be having a good night.”

Maddison understood exactly what the coach was doing.

“He wanted us to have a night where we all just relax,” he says. “That feeling that we got made everyone feel more knitted together, straight away.”

De Zerbi’s man-management extended to Maddison’s own situation. The midfielder was still working back from his ACL, nowhere near ready to play. De Zerbi put him on the bench anyway.

“I was almost like, 'I'm not ready to play yet, boss',” Maddison admits.

But the Italian insisted. “He said I can come on the bench in my slippers if I want. He just wanted me around the group and he thought that would benefit the group.”

Maddison took it as “a massive compliment” and threw himself into the role, treating himself as “part of the bench, part of the team” even when he couldn’t kick a ball.

He won’t claim that alone saved Spurs, but he knows how it felt when they finally pulled clear.

“I'm not saying that's the reason why, but we managed to steer clear of the danger, which was a good feeling.”

Back on the pitch, eyes on what’s next

The comeback finally arrived on 11 May, against Leeds. After months of rehab and watching from the sidelines, Maddison stepped back onto a Premier League pitch.

Pre-season has been more cautious. Spurs have not risked him so far, the club wary of rushing a player who has already lost one year to his knee.

He, though, sounds restless and ready.

“I'm working so hard to try and be fully fit and available for the majority of the season,” he says. “I want just a fully fit, healthy season where I can just enjoy football.”

There’s no false modesty about what that would mean, either.

“Because if I'm fully fit and I'm healthy, then I know what I'm capable of. And I know that I can affect games more than a lot of players in this league. So, let's just hope for that.”

From nappies and night feeds to the roar of a packed stadium, Maddison’s world has rarely felt fuller. The trenches are still there at home. The question now is whether, with a repaired knee and a reset Spurs under De Zerbi, he can drag himself – and his club – back into the thick of the Premier League fight.