Horror injury to Andre Gomes overshadows Spurs draw at Everton
Everton’s Andre Gomes suffered a horrific injury which overshadowed his side’s battling 1-1 home draw against Tottenham Hotspur in the English Premier League Sunday.
The Portuguese international suffered a fractured dislocation to his right ankle after a challenge from Spurs’ Son Heung-min and was rushed straight to hospital where he underwent successful surgery on Monday.
The midfielder’s ankle appeared to buckle under him after Son’s challenge saw him collide with Serge Aurier but the club confirmed Gomes is expected to make a full recovery.
It was immediately clear that the injury was serious with South Korean star Son visibly upset even before he was belatedly shown the red card by referee Martin Atkinson.
Aurier, who would have had a full view of the extent of the injury, was seen appearing to pray while other players could barely bring themselves to view what had happened.
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Tottenham led 1-0 before the incident with Dele Alli scoring for the visitor just after the hour mark after Alex Iwobi’s mistake led to Son feeding him the pass to score.
With Son sent off, Everton pressed for an equalizer in the 12 minutes of added time and it duly arrived when substitute Cenk Tosun headed home from Luca Digne’s cross.
But all thoughts were with Gomes at the final whistle, with under pressure Everton manager Marco Silva summing up those feelings.
“It’s more than a football game, it’s the most important thing right now and give all our support to him and to his family as well,” he said.
“We as a group and the players we have to keep the spirit we showed after that moment,” he added.
Everton’s goalscorer Tosun said after the match that he would have rather lost the game than see his teammate suffer such an injury.
“You win, you draw, you lose but all that doesn’t matter when something like this happens. I wish I didn’t score, I wish we lost 0-5 and this didn’t happen,” he wrote on Instagram.
“I know you will come back stronger bro and we will be there for you.”
Son ‘distraught’
Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino said Son was not to blame for the serious injury sustained by Gomes and hinted the club could appeal the decision.
“It was clear it was never the intention of Son to create the problem that happened afterwards,” said Pochettino, before blaming the involvement of VAR.
“I don’t know what will happen now. The club will see if it is possible but what we cannot change is what happened after.”
However, Pochettino was full of praise for the way in which Everton’s players reacted, in particular club captain Seamus Coleman who visited Tottenham’s dressing room to console Son.
