The Russian gymnast who inspired Eberechi Eze Achille to recover to make Euro 2024 squad

Eze insists recovering from his injury has been harder than any experience of rejection as a teenager when Arsenal, Fulham, Reading and Millwall all turned him down before he joined QPR at 18 years.

“That’s a good question,” he replied when asked why clubs couldn’t see his talent. “If I’m honest, I don’t look back on my release and feel like I didn’t deserve to be released.

“I haven’t really worked hard enough or I’m not really suited to a club’s style of play. Again, you look at them as reasons and I’ll be honest, I don’t completely understand the reasons why, it hasn’t really been explained clearly, like “ok, that makes sense.”

“Maybe not executing it as consistently as I do now, which is possible and being so young. Different clubs have different ideas on how they want their players to be at that age and what they look for in seeing a professional player.

“They’ve been trying to make a decision and they’re calling all the time. They will be wrong.

At Palace, his high-intensity runs have steadily increased during his four seasons at the club, with Oliver Glasner going further with his new style since arriving in February.

“The manager is top notch, high level,” he said. “I like working with him. He brought new ideas and definitely brought something different to work with. We feel stronger, fitter, more capable of doing the things we know we can do. That was what we were missing, so being with him now and seeing how he works. He demands much more from us, it’s fun, it’s pleasant. I have a feeling it will be like that for him.

This time when the message arrived, Eze says he felt nothing but gratitude after missing his chance three years ago. He adds to the list of players who have come through the EFL in Southgate’s team, with his time at QPR including a loan spell at Wycombe in League Two when he played against Accrington Stanley.

“When you look back, I always try to appreciate how far we’ve come. It’s a big difference between Accrington Stanley and where I am now,” he said.