Former Crystal Palace midfielder Jonny Williams has admitted he had doubts about his future in the game after leaving the Eagles.
The Welsh international left Crystal Palace in 2019 following a 17-year stay, having been dogged by injuries during his time in south London, after coming through the ranks with the Eagles after joining the club as a nine-year-old.
Having been a regular in the team to help Palace to promotion from the Championship in the 2012/13 season, Williams had limited game time in the seasons thereafter, making just 17 more appearances for the Eagles in all competitions to take his total to 70 in the red and blue.
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Williams did have several spells out on loan to Ipswich Town (twice), Nottingham Forest, Milton Keynes Dons and Sunderland, before he joined Charlton Athletic on a permanent deal in January 2019.
He spent two years with the Addicks and played 66 times for the south London club, before joining Championship side Cardiff City in February 2021. However, he only played nine times for the Bluebirds before joining Swindon Town in the summer of 2021.
Since then, he has been a regular for the League Two side, making 62 appearances in total and scoring 11 goals in all competitions, while he has remained a feature of Rob Page's Wales squad, with 33 caps to his name.
But he has admitted that he has had his struggles, with his spells at Sunderland and Cardiff City among the lowest points for him in recent years.
“Yeah potentially I did have doubts," he has said, speaking to Wales Online about his struggles. “My head was a bit all over the place, I was a free agent.
“I had signed for Cardiff and was there for a while. I didn’t play as many games as I would have liked to.
“Mainly because the team went on about an eight-game winning streak which was great. They just missed out on the play-offs at the end and me personally I didn’t really get the chance to show what I can do.
“I felt low at the time and Sunderland was tough. I didn’t get kept on by Cardiff and was out of contract."
However, he has said that he is grateful to former Palace coach Ben Garner, who has kept in touch with him over the years and signed him at Swindon to help him get his career back on track.
And it has worked out for him since, establishing himself as a key man for the Wiltshire side and scoring his second senior international goal for Wales against Poland in June, helping him to earn a place in Page's 26-man squad for the World Cup, which he has described as "surreal."
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