Wes Burns hails 'massive' Bellamy support as Wales winger completes return from ACL nightmare
It is usually the manager who pulls a player to one side before or after training to offer a word of advice or appreciation. With Wes Burns and Craig Bellamy, it was the other way round.
Wales winger Burns says he made a point of pulling his head coach aside to thank him for the "massive" support he received after a career-threatening knee injury ended his Premier League dream in 2025 — backing he believes may have saved his international career, too.
"The world of football forgets you very, very fast when you're not playing," said the 31-year-old, who is back with the national team for the first time in two years. "But when someone of Craig Bellamy's stature, the head coach of Wales, is calling me every month, or once every two weeks, to make sure I'm doing well... it's a massive, massive plus.
"Rather than feeling a million miles away, it always made me feel I was in touching distance of getting back in."
'You're only one second away from disaster'
Burns' gratitude is easy to understand. He spent almost a year on the sidelines after suffering a torn anterior cruciate ligament during Ipswich Town's defeat at Liverpool in January 2025. By the time he returned, 11 months later, his club were back in the Championship and he had slipped off Wales' radar as they prepared for an ultimately unsuccessful bid to reach the 2026 World Cup via the play-offs.
The Cardiff-born winger was never completely off Bellamy's mind, though — and the Wales head coach, who suffered a similar injury during his own playing days, made sure he knew it.
"You just have to remember you're only one second away from disaster, really," said Burns. "That's how I felt when the injury happened. You feel that could be the end of your career because you never know how bad the injury is initially.
"And when you've had surgery, and your knee's like a balloon, you're thinking 'how on earth am I even going to walk again, never mind play'.
"Everything heals in time, though, and it was just about making sure I got the rehab right. The phone calls from Craig, knowing he had a similar injury when he was younger as a player, meant so much to me."
Trading the Premier League for a Leicester project
Having helped Ipswich bounce straight back to the top flight in the 2025-26 campaign, Burns could have been playing Premier League football again this season. Instead, the former Fleetwood winger chose to drop two divisions to join Leicester City, who have struggled to adapt to life in League One under former Swansea City boss Russell Martin.
"I could've done another year at Ipswich, and I was weighing up whether to finish the story of playing a full season in the Premier League — a level I'd worked so hard to get back to," said Burns. "But I also had to think about the longevity of my career, and in the end I took the option of a longer contract at Leicester and possibly recreating what I'd already done at Ipswich — back-to-back promotions."
Such a fairytale might seem remote right now, with the Foxes sitting 13th in League One after just two wins from their opening seven games. Burns, however, insists Leicester will improve as the season goes on.
"We all know the story — Leicester, Premier League champions 10 years ago, amazing Champions League run, FA Cup winners, and now sort of sitting mid-table in League One," he said. "But it feels like they're very much in the same spot as when I went into Ipswich.
"It's a chance to recreate something that I've done in the past with an amazing manager (Martin) who obviously gets a lot of stick. He has a style of play and a philosophy that's very, very football-based and high risk, but when that works it's amazing.
"Trust me — I've played against very good Russell Martin teams and they're very hard to play against, but it's a process and processes take a long time. I've got no doubt it's going to pick up, for sure."
From Barnsley to Copenhagen — with Haaland on the horizon
Burns' last outing for Leicester was a 30-minute cameo off the bench at Barnsley on 19 September. One week on, he hopes to step back onto the international stage for the first time since starting Wales' 1-0 win over Montenegro in Nations League B in October 2024 — the most recent of his 10 caps for his country.
He did not get off the bench as Wales opened their Nations League campaign with Thursday's 1-0 defeat in Portugal, but he is hoping for minutes in Copenhagen on Sunday (17:00 BST) before a Cardiff City Stadium meeting with Erling Haaland's Norway on Thursday, 1 October.
The 31-year-old also hopes to feel the benefit of working with Wales' new coaches, such as former captain Ashley Williams, as he looks to make up for lost international minutes.
"Going from the weekly level of football I'm now at to possibly playing against Norway, Denmark or Portugal at home next month... obviously the gap in quality is going to be massive," said Burns. "But I've had experience of playing in the Premier League and against very good international teams.
"The one that stands out for me is when we played Netherlands away in the Nations League in 2022, and I was on the same pitch as midfielder Frenkie de Jong — still to this day the best player I've ever played against or witnessed on a football field.
"So just drawing on experiences like that, and big games I've played in, will definitely help if I do get on the pitch against Denmark and Norway. It's just so exciting to be involved in games like these."
Denmark v Wales — Nations League Group A4
Sunday, 27 September, 17:00 BST, Parken Stadium, Copenhagen. Live on BBC iPlayer, BBC One Wales, BBC Sounds, BBC Radio Wales, Radio Cymru and 5 Live, with live text commentary on the BBC Sport website and app.