\n<\/p>\n
Townsend, who won 13 caps for England, said that he did think it was strange to see two rollers either side of the pitch during the warm-up.<\/p>\n
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘I’ve never seen that before in my career, what are they doing?’ But we got called to warm-up. Didn’t think anything of it,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The next I saw him was when I was literally underneath him and thankfully no serious damage. A couple of bumps and bruises but managed to walk away unscathed, luckily.”<\/p>\n
Townsend, who has had numerous setbacks with injuries during his career, said the roller incident was “definitley not going to stop me from continuing”.<\/p>\n
“They (his team-mates) were very surprised that I continued the warm-up. They were telling me to go to the doctor,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It was quite heavy, but I was able to kind of lift [it], force it off me. So when it was completely on me, I was getting crushed a little bit.<\/p>\n
“I was able to get my left arm up and relieve some of the pressure, and then I was able to get my team-mates around me who were able to lift it, and I was able to squeeze out but at that moment where it was crushing my left leg, it was quite terrifying, I must say.”<\/p>\n
Townsend was concerned his ankle and left knee, which have both been operated on, would be damaged in the incident.<\/p>\n
He said: “I thought, either my left ankle was going to snap or my left knee is going to snap. I thought I was done. I was very fortunate that I was able to hobble away and recover within a few minutes.”<\/p>\n
The midfielder made light of the incident on Instagram, referencing one of his recent posts in which he compared a sun-drenched Thai away trip with previous visits to Stoke’s Bet365 Stadium.<\/p>\n
He wrote: “It turns out Stoke away wasn’t so bad after all.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n