He said: "Yeah, look it's a challenge. I think just about every player in the squad I've had that question about and I've been pretty consistent in my answers that we've had a very disruptive season. He's another one that's had disruptions. First 10 games, he played every game and he was going really well.
"Then he picked up an injury, missed a lot of football and he's come back but we've had challenges as a team where we haven't had any real fluency in terms of cohesion, games and starting line-ups. He's had to battle through that like a lot of them.
"That's part of the challenge. For us, the fact that things have not gone smoothly this year means you feel a bit of pain but in the long term you create a stronger and more resilient group and Madders is one of those guys. He's just got to fight his way out of it."