“I loved football, but you don’t realise how much you love something until it’s taken from you.

“Hungry doesn’t describe how I feel going into the new season, I cannot wait, I’m so excited and I just want to give something back to the fans.

“When you have an injury like I had, you only come back from it if you have a certain mindset and it does change you.

“If I’m honest with myself, I maybe wasn’t maximising what I had, but now I feel like I know my body and I am maximising what I have and I’m giving myself the best shot at what I want to achieve.”

Lee Bowyer was naturally delighted to secure Forster-Caskey’s services for the new season and added these comments:

“For me, he’s like a new signing. We had him back towards the end of last season, but he just wasn’t quite there.

“The reports I’m getting now are that he is absolutely flying again. He’s been working hard throughout the summer because he knows the opportunity that he has now, and I’m looking forward to seeing him back next week.

“He was so unlucky last season, last pre-season, he was playing really well and looked really fit, but I think he’s going to be even hungrier this year and we’ll see a completely different player to the one we had before.

“He’s such a good player anyway, but he’s worked hard to get himself to that next level and I can’t wait to see him get going again.”