Former Preston North End midfielder Izzy Brown has told his side of the story surrounding his departure from the club last year.
Brown decided to hang up his boots last week, announcing his retirement due to repeated injuries.
Seeing Brown retire at 26 is a sad development given that many backed him for big things as a youngster.
Brown just never quite fulfilled his potential and his final move – joining PNE in 2021 – really didn’t pay dividends.
North End gave Brown a chance to get his career back on track but a major Achilles injury occurred after just one pre-season game.
That meant we never saw Brown play in a competitive game for North End, and his time at the club actually ended early.
Boss Ryan Lowe told Lancs Live that Brown had left the club ahead of his contract expiring due to him not meeting the high standards at Deepdale.
Lancs Live noted that the problems were down to ‘punctuality and attitude issues’.
Brown has now responded to those suggestions almost a year since his departure.
Speaking to The Athletic, Brown has admitted that it hurt to see his own manager criticising him in the media.
Brown noted that he only really had one or two conversations with Lowe but feels there was miscommunication between them.
Brown talked about an incredibly emotional moment in his life as agent Dominic Yarwood went missing and committed suicide.
Yarwood meant a lot to Brown and that situation was difficult for the midfielder, who was given time off on the advice of a therapist.
Brown admitted that he came back and wasn’t focused on football and getting fit again because he simply couldn’t sleep due to Yarwood’s passing.
The sleeping problems resulted in being late for training and Brown notes that he doesn’t have an attitude problem, it was just that he was dealing with difficult personal issues.
“Being a footballer, you have to bite your tongue quite a lot because when you have a bad game, you’re the first one to know,” said Brown. “But you go on Twitter, you see what the fans are saying and you have to just deal with it. It’s part and parcel of the job. But when the manager, who’s meant to protect his players, comes out publicly to say things when he knows what I’ve gone through… that’s hard. He wasn’t there when I first got injured and then we only had maybe one or two conversations after he joined.”
“Then in December last year one of my best friends committed suicide. I was struggling to sleep and the manager gave me 10 days off, because of the therapist that I was speaking to at the time. When I came back, my mind wasn’t completely focused on getting back fit because of what had happened. So I was late a few times because I wasn’t sleeping and would fall asleep at five in the morning and then sleep through my alarm.”
“That’s where there was a bit of a miscommunication between us. It’s not that I have a bad attitude. I was just going through something that not many people should ever have to go through, and on top of an injury as well. It was probably the toughest year of my life,” he added.