With John McGinn, Conor Hourihane and a certain Jack Grealish for competition, Tom Carroll needed to hit the ground running when he arrived at Aston Villa in January 2019.
But, when Dean Smith and co were soaking the Wembley turf with champagne four months later, the celebrations must have felt bitter-sweet for the Swansea City loanee.
Carroll played just two games during a forgettable spell in Villa colours, mustering little more than half an hour of action thanks to a troublesome hip injury that robbed the midfielder of a chance to join Grealish, McGinn and co in claret-and-blue folklore.
So, after a litany of fitness problems robbed him of the 2019/20 season too, plenty of eyebrows were raised when Queens Park Rangers offered an injury-stricken free agent a fresh start in September.
And, at the risk of cursing Carroll’s recent good luck, the one-time Tottenham prospect appears to have finally, finally put his career back on track in west London.
The 28-year-old has featured in all but one of QPR’s 15 Championship fixtures this season and started for the seventh time in the past eight matches during a 2-1 defeat to Bristol City last night.
“There were so many good performances. I thought across the pitch we were good. Tom Carroll was outstanding. I’m delighted for Tom,” Rangers boss Mark Warburton tells Capital Football.
“In recent games he’s been clocking over 12km and his fitness is really good after ten months of injury. I thought his range of pass, cleverness and disguise of pass made him outstanding.”
A fine passing range, tremendous work rate and ability to control a game from the centre of the park; these are the qualities Aston Villa saw in Carroll when they brought him to the Midlands in January 2019.
And a long-awaited return to fitness has finally allowed Carroll to remind everyone why he was once seen as one of the most promising home-grown playmakers in the country.
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