Ralph Hasenhuttl admits it will be a ‘miracle’ if Sam McQueen ever plays football again

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It has been 911 days since Sam McQueen last kicked a ball.

Two-and-a-half years later, the prospect of the Southampton left-back playing again looks no closer.

McQueen’s last appearance came in October 2018, during the seventh game of a prospective season-long loan spell with Middlesborough. The 26-year-old was stretchered off in the first half of his side’s EFL Cup tie with Crystal Palace, having landed awkwardly attempting to intercept an Andros Townsend pass.

Two days later, scans revealed McQueen had ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and doctors confirmed it would likely take 6-12 months as a period for full recovery.

After undergoing knee reconstruction, where screws were inserted into the joint, a sixth month period of rehabilitation was set to ensue. But not long after undergoing surgery, one of the worst case, uncommon scenarios occurred. The screws in the knee had become infected. For McQueen, it meant starting the recovery process from the very beginning.

Suffering such a significant injury not once, but twice, fostered a number of other injuries that arose as a direct consequence. Those injuries still plague McQueen now.

Up until the end of last year, the club held quietly optimistic hopes that McQueen would return to training in January and named him in their 25-man Premier League Squad. Since then, however, those small signs of hope have all but dissipated. McQueen is still no closer to being back on the pitch.

“His knee is good,” Ralph Hasenhuttl told Prost International. “He had some other problems, it’s a very long story to be honest. I’ve never had a situation where I was coming to the club and never see a player (not) playing for two-and-a-half years now.”

It is understood the club have been keen throughout his injury ordeal to keep the academy graduate around the Staplewood environment, despite his inability to participate in the majority of activities at the training base. McQueen, who has made 29 appearances for Saints since making his debut in October 2016, is within the squad’s COVID-19-secure bubble. Earlier this month, he was at St Mary’s to watch his team-mates come-from-behind win over Burnley.

“Since I’m here I’ve never saw him on the pitch,” says Hasenhuttl. “But when you know the infection on his knee and how things are going on then its even now a wonder that he’s able to play football or maybe one time will be able to play football again.

“We don’t know if he will ever return back to the pitch but if (he does) then it is a miracle.”

With his deal expiring in the summer, McQueen faces a precarious future at Southampton and to widen the scope of his problems, in football. The last two-and-a-half years have been beset by trauma and continual setbacks and has led McQueen, one of the key members to Southampton’s 2015 Under-21 Premier League Cup triumph, to largely become the forgotten man on the south coast.

Hasenhuttl also confirmed to Prost International that no decision has been made on the contracts of McQueen and Harry Lewis, another player who sees his current deal run out in June 2021.

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