Southampton vs Leicester City

Will recently committed his future to Saints by signing a three-year contract
“Leicester, for me?”
Will Smallbone pauses
for thought. “It’s a very
sad time, a dark time
in my life.”
Tonight’s reunion
with the Foxes, a
Championship fixture
few would have
predicted 12 months
ago, leaves the
Irishman with a score
to settle.
It was at an empty
King Power Stadium
in January 2021
that he suffered an
anterior cruciate
ligament injury – every
footballer’s worst
nightmare – in a 2-0
defeat that would keep
him sidelined for nine
months.
There’s never a good
time for any young
14 « SAINTS « WE MARCH ON
player to go through
that – Smallbone was
20 at the time – but
the sense of loss was
heightened by the loss
of something else: his
hair.
Alongside a serious
knee injury, the
youngster was
diagnosed with
alopecia. His world was
caving in, and Covid
restrictions left him
stuck inside, alone with
his thoughts, without
any form of escapism.
“The doctors can't say
if they are linked,” he
was quoted in 2021,
speaking publicly
about alopecia for the
first time. “Because
of the injury and the
stress of being out for
so long, they can't say
if that caused it, but
the timings line up. It
would make sense for
them to coincide.
“Mine was a gradual,
steady increase of how
bad it was. It started off
as a really small patch
of hair I was missing,
which slowly grew and
then eventually just
started falling out from
all sides. The doctor's
advice was just to
shave it because
eventually it was going
to get to that anyway.”
Smallbone is not one
to exaggerate. He
speaks as he plays,
calm and understated,
but now that he can
reflect on it all, having
come out the other
side, he recognises
how tough it was.
“I think everything in