Guthrie: 2025 has been the hardest year of my career by far
Jon Guthrie has described 2025 as the ‘hardest year of my career by a long way’ after he started his first game in 362 days.
The 33-year-old defender made his return from a long-term ACL injury in early November but, with the club taking extra care over his recovery, he had to wait a further seven weeks to finally start a game. At long last, Guthrie’s name appeared on the team sheet when Cobblers headed north to Huddersfield on Monday, which meant he started two games in the whole of 2025 – the first and the last.
"I was obviously really excited when I found out I was starting,” he admitted. “It’s basically a year since my last start so it’s been a very long time. It’s been the hardest year of my career by a long way and I’ve felt pretty low for most of it but to finish it with my first start, that’s a big positive. Of course the main thing is always the result and we didn’t get that, which is a shame, but I’m delighted to be back out there.”
After missing the defeat at Burton with flu, Kevin Nolan’s decision to start Guthrie against Huddersfield came as a surprise to one or two but not to the man himself.
"I wasn’t massively surprised to be honest,” he added. “I’ve been training for a good few months now and I’ve felt strong the few times I have come on in the last month so I was hopeful that I would be getting a start over Christmas.
"There are so many games in this period of the season and there are always going to be changes between matches so I was hoping I would get a start and I was so excited to get back out there and it was a really nice moment to lead the team out.”
On whether he’s ready to start two games in four days, Guthrie said: “We’ll have to wait and see on that. It depends on how I recover in the next couple of days. Obviously, as a player, you want to play every game but you’ve got to think about the long-term as well because it’s been a year since my last start. I’ll see how I feel and if the manager needs me, I’ll be ready.”