There was no end in sight, literally or figuratively, as Michael Ngoo sped down the motorway near his London home.
After leaving Liverpool in the summer of 2014, the striker had led a nomadic existence, playing for struggling lower league clubs before Scottish Premiership side Kilmarnock took a chance on him.
But he had only made a few appearances when a tackle by Virgil van Dijk, then of Celtic, ruled him out of the game for two years and left him undergoing two lots of surgery to screw the bones in his ankle back together.
A spell at non-league Bromley and a short stint at Oldham Athletic followed, but Ngoo was consumed with depression and anger about how his career had turned out.
“I wasn’t just injured physically – I was psychologically shattered, as well,” he says. “Before I had my first operation, the specialist said to me that if my rehab did not go to plan then I would not play professional football again. He made that clear.
“I went through a very bad time. I’d get in my car, turn the music up and go on long and meaninglessness motorway journeys – and then I’d drive back home again.
“I was stressed and reflecting about what I should do because I thought that I might not be able to kick a ball again.”
East Londoner Ngoo, who rejected his boyhood club Manchester United to sign for Liverpool when he was 16, did not tell anyone how he felt. He was the bubbly guy who would light up a room and did not think that others would understand what he was going through.
And his troubles culminated in him being spared jail in 2018, having been prosecuted for selling nitrous oxide – also known as laughing gas – at V Festival two years earlier.
Ngoo says: “I was drinking and hanging around with people who I don’t even see anymore.
“I wasn’t playing football and I was up to no good. I was absolutely broken inside, but I wouldn’t show it.”
Manchester United or Liverpool?
The son of Nigerian parents, Ngoo joined Southend United at a young age. His talents caught the eye of Manchester United, who invited him on trial when he was 16 and for whom he played alongside Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard in the prestigious Milk Cup youth competition.
United offered him a contract, but then Liverpool swooped in. Despite his reservations, the striker opted for Merseyside.
“I grew up supporting United and I wanted to sign for them, but I had a lot of people in my ear telling me I should go to Liverpool,” says Ngoo, now 29. “I was only…
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