Robbie Savage has been given many labels during his 15-year career: aggressive and arrogant, mad and bad, irascible and contemptible. Those are the most polite descriptions. Yet scratch the surface - not too hard, either - and much of the bullish veneer disappears.

He feels, he worries, he hurts. So much so that he wondered, last month, if his career might be over, that his body had given up. So much so that, to add to the series of nagging injuries, his mind had been scrambled to a pulp. And so much so that, in his darkest moments, he took out his frustration on his family.

Joining doomed Derby County in January, from Blackburn Rovers, only enhanced a growing sense of worthlessness. “I was in and out of the Blackburn team and I just wanted to play every week,” Savage said. “I chose to come here - it was here or Sunderland - and I knew they were going down. But I didn't realise it was as bad as it was.

“It had got to the stage that I was going home feeling unwell. I was a bag of nerves, what with all the stress. It was unbelievable. It affects your whole life. OK, maybe not unwell, but it was eating up inside you; you get depressed. You've been involved in a winning mentality for most of your career and, suddenly, week in, week out, you're losing.

“You think, 'Is there anything I could have done?' Or, as a player, 'Have you gone? Have your legs gone? Is it you?' Yeah, I honestly thought that. I thought, 'Dear God. I hope not.' I knew, deep down, that I wasn't playing well. I'm my biggest critic, I don't need an eight out of ten in the paper to see if I've done well.

“I know myself and I know that the games were passing me by, that I couldn't get to the challenges, I couldn't get anywhere. It was a nightmare. I thought, 'God Almighty, this could be it.' With me, the way I play, I don't want to go out like that. I don't want to go out with people thinking, 'Oh, his legs went.'

“If I'd carried on like this until the summer and into next season, I'd probably have given up. I've had such a decent career. But to get the mickey taken out of me, to get young kids running past me ... if this had gone on, I'd have honestly thought, ‘What is the point? This is it.'”

Savage, 33, was relaxed and chatty yet curiously vulnerable as he lay on the treatment table at Moor Farm, Derby's state-of-the-art training complex on the outskirts of the city, not far from Pride Park. Alan Tomlinson, the physiotherapist, was massaging his right knee, Savage's latest ailment. The exchanges between patient and healer were humorous, rat-a-tat, a psychological element perhaps complementing the physical and medical.

Tomlinson, the former Wigan Warriors rugby league and Wigan Athletic physiotherapist, is a newcomer to the club, too. Yet the bond, essential in the wafer-thin psyche of the professional footballer, is already close. Savage will be fit for the match at home to Aston Villa today, his 500th appearance of a career during which he has played for Crewe Alexandra, Leicester City, Birmingham City, Blackburn and Derby, and the former Wales warhorse, the blond straggly-haired midfield enforcer, is grateful.

“Every week I've been in here for a couple of days,” the Derby captain said. Tomlinson nodded his assent.

“It was just one thing after another, lots of niggling injuries. I was on painkillers or local anaesthetics just to play the games. But I came in on the morning of the Man United game [March 15, lost 1-0] and said to Al, 'I don't think I need any pain relief today.' He was quite surprised.

“I probably had the best game I've had for a couple of years. That made me realise that I was OK. I went home that night and I thought, 'Yeah, I can still do it at this level.' It was a massive relief. I'm not a drinker - though I don't say I never drink, if you know what I mean - but I went home and had a couple of glasses of wine. I was a bit drunk.

“But I was really proud of myself. I had got a bit of stick from the fans and rightly so. They were expecting a lot from me and, of course, I played for Leicester [Derby's rivals]. But it was a huge relief. And I've done pretty well since then.

“When I'm playing well, I'm unstoppable, really. With my banter, everything. But when I'm not, I throw my toys out of the pram. I've done it a few times in training here. I just want to win. Yeah, I keep stuff inside. I'm just a normal guy, other than being a hypochondriac. And I'm quite insecure, really.”

Savage insecure? Is Wayne Rooney a monk? Yet earlier, when Savage had taken part in a question-and-answer session with 14 in-house competition winners from Barclays, the global title sponsor of the Premier League since 2001, he admitted to nerves. Still drenched in sweat, after a training stint with the Derby coaches, the inquisitors threw in a few meaty curve-balls.

“Speaking to an audience is quite hard,” Savage said. “You can play in front of a 50,000 crowd, but talking to 20 or so people you've not met before is not easy.” He survived, making light of the day he drove into Moor Farm in his £160,000 Mercedes. “I upset my team-mates?” he said. “I could have driven in in my Bentley.”

During the muddled hours of introspection, though, he had upset his family - his wife, Sarah, and sons, Charlie, 4, and Freddie, 2. “Sarah has been a saint,” Savage said. “It's been tough for her, too. When I'm down, she bears the brunt of it. And she can't understand why. I try to explain: 'Well, who do I take my anger out on?' I don't hit her, you'll be pleased to know, it's just my moods around the house and the kids.”

The real Robbie Savage is back, rejuvenated. Yet when he finishes his two-year contract with Derby, the curtain will come down, the fire will be extinguished. “I want to end my career on a high,” he said. “Get promoted and then, in my 35th year, play in the Premier League. What a wonderful way to go out that would be. And that would be it.”