Tom Cleverley has spoken candidly about the anxiety issues that affected his playing career.
Manchester United academy graduate Cleverley rose through the ranks into the first team at Old Trafford and ended up winning 13 senior caps for England in a career that also saw him win the Premier League title in 2012-13.
But the following season was especially difficult for Cleverley, who admits to shortcomings in his form but was negatively affected by deeply unjustified by widespread public scapegoating as he should have been approaching his playing peak.
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Tom Cleverley opens up about mental health challenges
Tom Cleverley ended his playing career with Watford
Now in his second managerial role at Plymouth Argyle, the 36-year-old gave his club’s in-house media a revealing and heartfelt interview on matters of mental health.
“Stress is poor form. Stress is receiving abuse. And then anxiety is when that is a chronic problem, when that’s a problem that doesn’t go away and that’s what [2013-14] became,” revealed Cleverley.
Tom Cleverley (R) with Man United teammates Danny Welbeck and Jonny Evans in 2013 (Image credit: Getty Images)
“There was a petition to take me out of the England squad [and] that fed into it. Another thing that happened the following year… I got burgled at home and when my home then became not a place of escape it became very suffocating.”
Cleverley was indeed taken out of the England squad and found himself back on the loan market, spending the 2014-15 season on loan at Aston Villa. He joined Everton in 2015 and, after another initial loan, finished his career with six years at Watford.
“[I dealt with it] very poorly in the beginning,” says Cleverley of his early experiences with anxiety.
“It was home from training, dark rooms, sort of Netflix and, yeah, not wanting to leave the house before the next day’s training. [It was] a very unhealthy way of coping – a really uneducated way to deal with it.”
Cleverley spent a difficult season on loan at Aston Villa
Cleverley eventually sought help and credits education about breathing exercises and maintaining healthy sleep patterns with improving his ability to deal with anxiety, however it presents itself.
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“As a footballer I was always someone who judged how life was going by those 90 minutes a week,” says the former Man United midfielder. “I think a lot of people in professional football are guilty of that.
“We have to understand that there are times as a footballer you need to be strong, you need to be durable, you need to grit your teeth.
“But there are also times that it’s absolutely okay that those qualities can take a back seat and you can talk to someone.”
The Argyle manager’s account was part of the club’s support of World Mental Health Day and Mind, the mental health charity.
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