James Maddison's Toughest Year: Injury, Family Chaos, and Spurs Survival

James Maddison leans back in his chair, smiles and shakes his head. Five children aged four and under. Two sets of twins. A shredded knee. A relegation fight. He calls it “the toughest year of my life” and you don’t doubt him for a second.

His story opens the new series of The Football Interview, which returns on BBC One at 12:45 every Saturday throughout the Premier League season, and is also available on BBC iPlayer, BBC Football YouTube and the BBC Sport website and app. Host Kelly Somers sits down with the Tottenham playmaker who, at 29, has already lived through the kind of season most professionals dread.

‘In the trenches’ at home

Maddison’s anterior cruciate ligament ruptured last August. The injury wiped out most of his 2025-26 campaign, stole his rhythm and parked him on the sofa with a machine strapped to his knee.

At home, life went the other way. It sped up.

During his rehab, his partner gave birth to their second set of twins. Five kids, all four and under. Chaos.

“We've been in the trenches,” he tells Somers, only half joking. “A lot of nappies flying about, a lot of accidents at home, but it'll all be worth it. We still love it. I wouldn't change it for the world.”

The knee surgery, the long days in the gym, the uncertainty about his return – all of it sat alongside a pregnancy and then newborns. He clung to that as a lifeline.

“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 says.

The injury threatened his career. The family kept him moving.

‘He thought I’d left Spurs’

Time moves differently when you’re injured. For Maddison, the months blurred into each other. For his eldest son Leo, they rewrote reality.

“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.

Leo had once been a regular at games, watching his dad in full flow. Then nothing. No matchdays, no roar, no dad in a Spurs shirt.

“He couldn't even remember over a year ago when he was at all the games,” Maddison admits. At one point, Leo assumed his dad had actually left Tottenham.

That hit hard. It also sharpened Maddison’s focus.

“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.”

Watching Spurs suffer

While Maddison battled through rehab, Spurs fought for their Premier League status. A club that talks about Champions League nights suddenly staring down the barrel.

They survived on the final day, finishing just two points clear of the relegation zone. For a player who thrives on dictating games, watching from the stands and the sofa cut deep.

“We probably struggled a little bit for creativity and I'm watching the games thinking, ‘what would I be doing there?’” he says.

He could see the gaps. The passes he would have tried. The moments he normally relishes. All of it happening without him, as Tottenham stumbled through a season that never settled.

De Zerbi’s reset

The mood began to change in March. Roberto de Zerbi walked through the doors at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and immediately set about loosening the tension.

“He's very clever. He's very tactical. He's obsessed with football, you can see that,” Maddison says. But the Italian didn’t arrive with a 200-page playbook and a demand to overhaul everything overnight.

“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.”

One of his first moves had nothing to do with pressing triggers or build-up patterns. It was a team meal. A proper one.

The instructions were simple. As Maddison recalls it, De Zerbi told them: “We're all going to be drinking alcohol, we're all going to be having a good night.”

No lectures. No curfews. Just a group of players and staff told to relax.

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

It was a deliberate reset. A reminder that football can still be fun, even when the table says otherwise.

Back on the bench – in slippers if needed

De Zerbi also had a different idea about Maddison’s role in the run-in. The midfielder, still working his way back from his ACL, expected distance. Instead, he got a seat on the bench.

“Another thing he did early on was to put me on the bench,” Maddison explains. “I was almost like, ‘I'm not ready to play yet, boss.’”

De Zerbi didn’t care about the timeline in quite the same way.

“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.”

For Maddison, that mattered.

“I took that as a massive compliment and just acted as if I was part of the bench, part of the team,” he says.

Tottenham did enough. They “managed to steer clear of the danger,” as he puts it. He won’t claim credit for that, but his presence, his voice, his personality – De Zerbi clearly felt they were part of the solution.

The return and what comes next

Maddison finally stepped back onto the pitch against Leeds on 11 May. After months of rehab and doubt, it was a small but significant landmark.

He has not been risked in pre-season so far. No rush, no shortcuts. Spurs know what they have when he is fully fit, and so does he.

“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 is no false modesty in what comes next.

“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.”

After a year of nappies, night feeds, and a knee in pieces, hope feels like a modest target. For Maddison and Tottenham, the real question now is how high they can aim once he’s back dictating games, not just watching them.