James Maddison: Back from Injury and Ready to Fire Spurs
The Football Interview returns to BBC One at 12:45 every Saturday during the Premier League season, with every episode also on BBC iPlayer, BBC Football’s YouTube channel and the BBC Sport website and app.
The first show of the new campaign, on Saturday, 22 August, drops in on a man who has lived a whole lifetime in 12 months: Tottenham Hotspur’s James Maddison.
Five kids under four and a ruptured ACL
Maddison sits down with Kelly Somers and lays it out. No gloss, no filters.
The 29-year-old missed almost the entire 2025-26 season after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament last August. While his knee healed, life at home exploded into controlled chaos. His partner gave birth to their second set of twins, taking them to five children aged four and under.
He calls it “the toughest year of his life”. Not just because of the injury. Because of everything.
"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.
The house became a battleground of bottles, crying and exhaustion.
"A lot of nappies flying about, a lot of accidents at home, but it'll all be worth it," he says. "We still love it. I wouldn't change it for the world."
‘Dad doesn’t play for Spurs anymore, does he?’
The long absence from the pitch had another sting.
Maddison’s eldest son, Leo, grew from three and a half to four and a half without seeing his dad in a Tottenham shirt. In a child’s world, that’s an era.
"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," Maddison says. "He couldn't even remember over a year ago when he was at all the games.
"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."
That image – a playmaker reduced to a spectator, strapped to a rehab device while his son forgets him as a footballer – cuts through the usual clichés of injury lay-offs.
Spurs on the brink, and a creator stuck on the sofa
While Maddison fought his own battle, Tottenham were locked in theirs.
Spurs staggered through a grim campaign, surviving only on the final day and finishing two points above the relegation zone. A club built on flair and front-foot football spent the year looking over its shoulder.
Maddison could only watch.
"We probably struggled a little bit for creativity and I'm watching the games thinking, 'what would I be doing there?'," he admits.
For a player who thrives on unlocking defences, that helplessness bit hard.
De Zerbi walks in and changes the mood
Then came a different kind of jolt. In March, Italian head coach Roberto De Zerbi arrived and started to rebuild not just the team, but the mood around Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
"He's very clever. He's very tactical. He's obsessed with football, you can see that," Maddison says.
But De Zerbi didn’t walk in with a 200-page playbook on day one. He understood where the squad were mentally.
"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. And very deliberate.
A night out, drinks allowed – by order of the boss
One of De Zerbi’s first moves was not a double session or a video analysis meeting. It was a team meal. With alcohol.
The 29-year-old recalls the Italian’s message: "We're all going to be drinking alcohol, we're all going to be having a good night."
No half-measures. No quiet water-only affair.
"He wanted us to have a night where we all just relax," Maddison explains. "That feeling that we got made everyone feel more knitted together, straight away."
In a season where tension had gripped the club, the new manager’s first big call was to let everyone breathe.
On the bench in slippers if he had to
De Zerbi’s second big decision involved Maddison himself.
Still recovering, the midfielder didn’t feel ready to play. The idea of rushing back after an ACL rupture can terrify any professional.
"Another thing De Zerbi did early on in his tenure was to put Maddison on the bench.
"I was almost like, 'I'm not ready to play yet, boss'," he says.
The response was blunt and telling.
De Zerbi told him he could come on the bench in his slippers if he wanted. The point wasn’t minutes. It was presence.
"He just wanted me around the group and he thought that would benefit the group," Maddison says. "I took that as a massive compliment and just acted as if I was part of the bench, part of the team.
"I'm not saying that's the reason why, but we managed to steer clear of the danger, which was a good feeling."
Even when he couldn’t kick a ball, Maddison was back in the fight.
Return against Leeds and a season to chase
The comeback finally arrived on 11 May against Leeds. A date circled in his head for months. A few minutes on the pitch, but a huge step in the story.
He has not been risked in pre-season so far, the club wary of undoing a year’s work with one misstep. The frustration is obvious, but so is the determination.
"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. 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 flying around the house to a club flirting with disaster, Maddison has lived the extremes. The question now is simple: with his knee fixed, his manager settled and his son ready to remember him in white again, how big an impact can he make on a Tottenham side desperate to feel like Tottenham once more?
