Wes Burns credits Craig Bellamy's support after career-threatening knee injury as he rejoins Wales squad

Wales winger Wes Burns said Craig Bellamy's support was crucial after Burns tore his anterior cruciate ligament during Ipswich Town's defeat at Liverpool in January 2025, as Burns returned to the national team for the first time in two years ahead of Wales' Nations League campaign that began with Thursday's 1-0 defeat in Portugal. The 31-year-old did not make it off the bench in Lisbon and is hoping for minutes in Wales' second Nations League match against Denmark in Copenhagen on Sunday, 27 October.

Burns earned the last of his 10 Wales caps in October 2024 and made a point of pulling Bellamy aside to thank him for his backing during rehabilitation. "The world of football forgets you very, very fast when you're not playing," Burns said, adding: "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." He later added: "The phone calls from Craig, knowing he had a similar injury when he was younger as a player, meant so much to me."

Burns was sidelined for almost a year after the January 2025 anterior cruciate ligament tear and returned 11 months later, by which time Ipswich were back in the Championship. He missed Wales' World Cup qualifying campaign and was off the national team's radar as they prepared for an ultimately unsuccessful bid to reach the 2026 World Cup via the play-offs. "You just have to remember you're only one second away from disaster, really," he said, describing the uncertainty after the injury.

Describing the immediate aftermath of surgery, Burns said: "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." He credited Bellamy's regular contact with helping him feel connected to the squad during recovery and suggested that without that backing his Wales career might have been in jeopardy.

Despite helping Ipswich return to the top flight in the 2025-26 campaign, Burns opted to sign for Leicester City and drop two divisions rather than remain at Ipswich. He explained the decision in part as a consideration of "the longevity of my career," saying: "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 (which injury deprived him of the previous time) - a level I'd worked so hard to get back to, 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)."

Leicester are 13th in League One with just two wins from their opening seven games, and Burns acknowledged the club have struggled to adapt to life in the division under former Swansea City boss Russell Martin. He discussed Martin's methods and the club's potential, saying: "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."

Burns' last outing for Leicester was a 30-minute cameo off the bench at Barnsley on 19 September, and he hopes to appear for Wales for the first time since starting their 1-0 Nations League win over Montenegro in October 2024. He outlined the immediate run of fixtures: from Oakwell in Barnsley to Copenhagen in Denmark, followed by a Cardiff City Stadium meeting with Erling Haaland's Norway on Thursday, 1 October. On the step up in opposition, he said: "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," and recalled facing the Netherlands: "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."

Burns is aiming to win game time in Wales' next fixture, the Nations League tie against Denmark in Copenhagen on Sunday, 27 October, which would be his opportunity to add to his international minutes and re-establish himself in the squad.