Gomes may play this season
Compassion of Son is admirable but he’s not the victim here
MARCO SILVA has provided an optimistic update on Andre Gomes, saying the midfielder could play again this season.
The Portugal international had successful surgery to repair a dislocated fracture of his right ankle, suffered in Sunday’s 1-1 draw with Spurs, and has returned to Everton’s Finch Farm training base to see his team-mates.
Silva confirmed that Tottenham forward Son
Heung-min had messaged Gomes (below) to express his sorrow for the tackle that led to the injury, but the head coach did not comment on whether Son’s red card deserved to be rescinded. There were fears it would be next season before the 26- year- old could return to action. Everton’s manager refused to put a timescale on his absence, but was positive. ‘Everything went really well and we hope we can see him playing again this season,’ Silva said.
‘It’s not easy for us to give an exact date of when he will return but in our mind, and the feedback from our medical staff, is that it is possible.
‘It looked like a really serious injury. It is not something we can be 100 per cent sure on, but there are a lot of positives.
‘Now it is a moment for all of us to give Andre our support.’
The Football League are to blame for the collapse of Bury, politicians claim. There should be reparations, there should be apologies, and if reform is not implemented government should intervene.
Fine words from Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee there, but just one problem. Modern football is run to far higher standards than modern political life.
If Jacob Rees-Mogg had been england manager, he’d be gone by now. Not hidden in the shadows until after the election. Not told to stay off the airways until everyone had forgotten that appalling thing he said. Gone, sacked, finished, done.
Rees- Mogg would not have made it to the middle of the week had he held a senior position at any major football club or organisation. The resulting storm over his shameful commentary on the Grenfell fire disaster would have ensured that.
Glenn hoddle found his position untenable when mangling religious doctrines into a clumsy assault on the disabled; Sam Allardyce was dismissed for little more than pub talk. Rees-Mogg slandered the victims of an accident that caused the greatest loss of life in London since the Second World War yet sails on regardless.
he even had colleagues lauding his intelligence and advancing his credentials hours later. Football needs no lectures on principle from Parliament.
There were 72 victims of the Grenfell fire disaster. At least 18 were children, including a sixmonth old baby and one that was later stillborn, and there were 11 dead from two families alone.
Football does not have to think back too far to find its own Grenfell; a tragic event in which the death toll was appallingly high, the suffering unimaginable and the victims let down by the authorities they had every right to trust. In football’s Grenfell, 96 people died.
Now imagine if a football manager, or more accurately a member of the decision-making executive, started talking about common sense in the aftermath of hillsborough? Imagine if it had been implied that those who died did so because they were not smart enough to get out of harm’s way? Careers would be over, and understandably so.
Football is a people’s game and those who steer it are required to have empathy and respect for the people. Politics is a people’s game, too.
Its leaders are obliged to care for those they represent; to have some understanding of how their lives are lived; to be able to relate. So Rees-Mogg’s words on Grenfell went beyond insensitivity. They were close to contemptuous of those who reside in tower blocks, suggesting they are not bright enough to move out of the way of fire.
The logical implication is that their circumstances — stranded in a high-rise death trap — were a result of not being particularly smart. Such studied distance from the existence of the ordinary would be fatal to a career in football; but not in politics.
Rees- Mogg even had one colleague attempt his rescue. Unfortunately, Andrew Bridgen made such a crass and stupid mess of his support that he had to issue a grovelling apology to the slandered victims, too.
Rees-Mogg is a thick person’s idea of a clever person, which is why Bridgen admires him so, but how smart is it to wreak such negativity on the Conservative Party in the infancy of a campaign? Probably as smart as it was to celebrate england’s
Cricket World Cup victory by tweeting: ‘ We clearly don’t need Europe to win.’ It was instantly pointed out to Rees-Mogg that the captain, Eoin Morgan, was Irish and the opening batsman, fastest bowler and best all- rounder were all immigrants. And this is the brains of the operation, apparently.
Yet Rees-Mogg and Bridgen are still very much in work and will be defending seats with a combined Conservative majority of 23,611 on December 12, so can expect to be returned. They won’t be cast into the wilderness like, say, Hoddle or Allardyce. They’ll just lie low for a while until this latest bonfire of the inanities subsides.
It was a politician who did for Hoddle. After his corruption of Buddhism — ‘You and I have been physically given two hands and two legs and halfdecent brains. Some people have not been born like that for a reason. The karma is working from another lifetime.’ — it was an appearance by Prime Minister Tony Blair on the
Richard and Judy show that became the point of no return.
BlAIR said it would be difficult for Hoddle to keep his job, and he was sacked by the Football Association the next day. He has never occupied a role of similar importance and prestige since. Allardyce, too, lost the chance of a lifetime, lured into indiscretion by undercover journalists from The Telegraph.
Most imagined Allardyce would ride his storm with a warning, but no. He resigned within 24 hours, after meeting his FA employers.
So when the DCMS Committee next gets on its high horse about matters of governance, it should perhaps be mentioned the standards adhered to in football, and those expected of parliamentarians.
The EFl has made mistakes and these were pointed out long before politicians made it their business.
It is very hard, however, to effectively manage and legislate across 72 eclectic and often unstable lower league clubs, each pulling in a different direction.
By contrast, they’ll let any old horror into Parliament these days.