Danny Hylton is hoping for more game time when the season restarts in 10 days after admitting he was not in the plans of former manager Graeme Jones.
The Town boss was relieved of his duties in April, a month after football was shutdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
And last month, his predecessor Nathan Jones was brought back for a surprise second spell, to try to engineer a great escape away from the Championship trap door.
The Welshman signed Hytlon from Oxford in 2016 and he’d proved a talismanic figure, until he suffered a serious knee injury in March last year.
Two months earlier, Nathan Jones had left for Stoke under a cloud two and though Hylton returned for pre-season under Graeme Jones, he required further knee surgery that kept him crocked until the turn of the year.
But after returning to training he’d only made two brief Championship cameos off the substitutes’ bench, totalling 24 minutes, before the Covid crisis struck.
He said: “I would love to have been involved or used a little bit more but, from conversations with Graeme, it quickly became quite evident that I wasn’t going to.
“I was ready, and I was chomping at the bit to get back involved, I’ll never forget when we were playing Sheffield Wednesday, the fans singing the song and that was an unbelievable moment. To be fair, they probably got me subbed on that day!
“I would have loved to be involved more but he was the manager at the time, and he had his players and his philosophy.
“Without going into detail, he was big on trust and you had to earn his trust through playing basically. And through being injured, I hadn’t earned his trust so he was honest and explained the situation, so I had to respect that.
“He’s now gone and there is a manager who knows me and trusts me and hopefully I can get on the pitch a little bit more.”
Asked whether he was surprised by the departure of Graeme Jones in April, Hylton said: “Yes and no. We are where we are in the table, so he was going to be under some pressure I imagine because we weren’t where we wanted to be.
“I’m aware he had a tough job but the hierarchy took care of that decision and ultimately he did lose his job.
“We’re all delighted that Nathan is back now, it’s a good addition and one that we’re all really happy about.”
