"My first thought will always be can I go forward" - Midfielder Thomson-Sommers on joining Halifax, his injury and finding consistency

The midfielder admits his FC Halifax Town career could hardly have started any worse after picking up a knee injury in the off-season.

But he is now working his way back to full fitness, having made three substitute appearances in recent weeks.

"I probably made the worst start possible being out for 12 weeks!," Thomson-Sommers told the Courier.

"That was a tough period but I'm back out on the grass with the boys and trying to get myself fully back up to speed.

"It's ten times better than being inside the cabin (at the training ground) and doing injury rehab!

"A bad start but looking back on it now I can take the positives from it. I just hope to stay fit for the rest of the season."

Thomson-Sommers tore his medial collateral ligament in his knee while out running.

"Thankfully I didn't need an operation, even though it was quite a bad tear," he said.

"I just did it running in the off-season, just changing direction, just a fluke incident basically.

"It was really unfortunate but my knee feels as good as the other one and touch wood, everything's perfect now.

"It's just about getting up to speed because I had five or six weeks off before the injury, so in total I've already been off for four to five months.

"So it's getting my fitness to where I know I can be, but everyone here's been great. Az (physio) especially, the gaffer, everyone's supporting me and helping me as much as they can to get to the level I know I can play at."

Thomson-Sommers says he's waiting patiently for his first start.

"I'm sure it will come eventually," he said.

"Until then I'm just trying to get myself fully fit, and when it comes I'll hopefully take the chance."

When asked what the Town fans can expect of him as a player, the midfielder said: "Energy, creativity, I like to pass forward. My first thought will always be can I go forward.

"I'd say I'm very versatile as a midfielder, I like to attack, create, pass forward, I can dribble and drive with the ball.

"But then on the other side, I do like a tackle, I like winning the ball back, I like that just as much.

"I pride myself on doing both."

Thomson-Sommers moved from his native North London to Birmingham when he was 16 to join Birmingham City, where he stayed for five years.

"It was tough at the start, I used to get proper homesick but I got used to it after a while, and everyone there looked after me," he said.

"It was different to what I was used to down south, they had a different ethos, but it was really useful for me to grow as a player and just grow-up in general, be away from home, focus and get my head down."

Thomson-Sommers trained with the first-team at Birmingham but left without making his debut, which came during a six-month loan at Woking in the National League.

He was at Hereford last season, his first full campaign in senior football.

"I found it tough at the start, just getting used to how the game was, it was different to what I'd been used to," he said.

"But once I got into it, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a good platform for me to play week-in, week-out in a men's environment.

"That's what I wanted to do, I didn't want to play academy football anymore, I thought it was time for me to kick on and play men's football."

Thomson-Sommers said he probably learned as much in one year at Hereford than in five at Birmingham.

"It definitely comes close," he said. "You learn a lot in academy football but you can't learn everything, gearing up for men's football is completely different, and loads of players find that as soon as they get there.

"But as long as you make the switch early enough then you're still young enough learn and you can catch on quickly, but it is definitely different and yo do learn a lot very quick."

On his move to Halifax this summer, the 22-year-old said: "My initial thought-process was I wanted to play week-in, week-out and that's what made Hereford the right move for me at the time.

"I backed myself to perform and thought if I play week-in, week-out then I'll show that I'm good enough to play in the league above.

"I've made the step up this year and I want to get playing again.

"There were a few other teams who were interested, not as concrete as Halifax, but I'm happy I've come here.

"There's a lot of good players here, loads of players here have very good ability, some better than I've seen in higher divisions.

"It's just how consistently you can show it. Everyone's got ability but it's about whether you can do it on the pitch week-in, week-out.

"That's the main challenge for young players like me, but I feel like I do have the ability to be here."

Thomson-Sommers says The Shaymen need to add some consistency to their performances after a mixed start to the season.

"Our away form has been better than our home form, but that's something we're trying to work on," he said.

"We want to win more games at home. In every game we haven't won, we've felt that we could do more to win the game, and we've shown so many times that when we play consistently and as a team, and we get the details right - like at Ebbsfleet - then we have the ability to dominate other teams and win more games than we have.

"We've not had a bad start but we know that we can be more consistent.

"We won two games in a row for the first time this week and we want to build on that, we want to gain consistency, win more games home and away and get to where we think we can get, which is the play-offs.

"That needs consistency so that's what we're striving for."

He is one of five central midfielders competing for two places, along with Luke Summerfield, Florent Hoti, Jack Hunter and former Hereford team-mate Jack Evans.

"Everyone's got different attributes but it's good because we push each other, the standard's high in training," he said.

"We all want to play. I can learn off them as a younger player, obviously I want to play but I want to see what they're doing well, they'll test me and I'll test them.

"We'll all work together as a team. Sometimes you'll play and sometimes you won't but we're all going in the same direction, towards the same goal.

"It wasn't a great start with the injury but my first thought is to get in the team and play consistently and build from there.

"If I play week-in, week-out I'm hoping to show what I can do."