Muzzy Izzet backing Leicester City's Stephen Clemence to beat his injury nightmare
Clemence has not kicked a ball for the first team in 21 months after damaging a heel.
But the 31-year-old is back in training and has played reserve-team games, although manager Nigel Pearson continues to treat him with kid gloves after such a long lay-off.
It has been pure hell for the player, who has undergone two operations to get this far on the road to recovery.
Izzet, who played with Clemence at Birmingham, knows how that feels – he was forced to retire at 31 after suffering a serious knee injury.
Two injury-plagued seasons at St Andrews followed Izzet's virtual ever-present record in eight years at City, during which he made 260 appearances.
Clemence, who made 121 appearances for Blues over four seasons, has only managed 31 games for the Foxes since signing for £750,000 in the summer of 2007.
But, while it was a step too far for Izzet, the 35-year-old is hoping his former team-mate can win his fight to play again.
He said: "Stephen rarely missed a game at Birmingham, apart from a few strains and niggles but, then again, I had hardly missed a game for Leicester! I suffered a serious injury when I went to Birmingham that forced me to call it a day in the end so, hopefully, he can make it back from his.
"I know what it was like when I was injured and people kept asking how I was. I appreciated the concern but I just wanted to be left alone to get on with it.
"I sent him a text when it happened to say 'listen mate, I know it's going to be a long, hard struggle for you, but you can only try your best.'
"Hopefully he will come back from this and he's the sort of character who can."
Izzet warns that a first-team return is just the beginning – the biggest problem is sustaining the fitness levels to keep up with the demands of the punishing Championship schedule.
His retirement had been on the cards for a while, but the former Turkey international still managed to get back for Blues and was even considering a return to City before the knee gave way again.
All eyes will be on whether Clemence will follow suit and Izzet has his fingers crossed that will not be the case.
He said: "It's all about how much Stephen can do. If it flares up again, how many games are you going to be able to play?
"It's not a case of getting fit, it's a case of staying fit, and being able to play at that high intensity every week. It's whether you can play for 90 minutes on Saturday and then Tuesday, which you have to be able to do in the Championship a lot of the time.
"Then you have got to train every day and some bad injuries won't let you do that. He will have good days and bad days."
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