In November 2012 when Roy Hodgson gave 20-year-old Steven Caulker his England debut, the young central defender seemed to have the world at his feet, with the added bonus that he even managed to score to put England 2-1 up v Sweden at half-time (they eventually lost 4-2).

But then it all started to go downhill to the extent that Caulker, in a 2017 Guardian interview, confessed that life had deteriorated that much he had contemplated suicide owing to suffering desperate anxiety and self-loathing. Wages had been frittered away in casinos and he had also turned to alcohol to numb the pain. The extent of his problems came to full realisation during his loan spell at St Mary’s as he explained to The Guardian

“There was no understanding as to what was happening in my head. I know they’d brought me in to do a job and they weren’t there to be babysitters. Just like at QPR, I needed to justify the money they were paying me but I was in a state and, at some point, there has to be a duty of care. Football does not deal well with mental illness. Maybe it’s changing but the support mechanisms are so often not there”. 

Certainly, he did not cover himself with glory in the eight appearances he made for Saints, the last of which included the 6-1 home drubbing by Liverpool in the League Cup. He had been signed when Florin Gardos badly injured his knee in a pre-season friendly, however, the Southampton management did not seem too put out when QPR curtailed his season-long loan so they could then loan Caulker to Liverpool.

As he admits in the interview he was now in a seriously bad place and it is encouraging that, after a mutually-agreed departure from QPR in January 2018, he recently seems to have overcome a lot of his mental issues. In the summer of 2019, his form playing in Turkey allegedly aroused the interest of Steve Bruce, recently installed as Newcastle’s manager although nothing materialised. However when the Turkish Super Lig shut down because of the Corona virus epidemic Steven was still there and was unable to get home to self isolate. In December 2021 he was given FIFA clearance to represent Sierra Leone, the country of his grandfather’s birth. By the time he joined Wigan in the January 2023 transfer window he had become Sierra Leone’s captain.