People seem to forget how much a sever injury can set you back, yet alone two in a row. Add half a dozen small ones on top of that.
First of all it completely hinders your development, secondly it affects your confidence. A player without belief in his own ability will never shine. Not to mention he returned from a severe injury under McLeish, who never would have gotten the best out of him to begin with, regardless of his injury history. He never really got to go on a proper consecutive run until Lambert got here. I'm glad that Lambert is our manager and not us fans, who have a tendency to write players off far to quickly.