Alcaraz may need surgery

, 5 November, 20comments  |  Jump to most recent
Everton will make a decision in the next few days over whether or not Antolin Alcaraz will need an operation to mend his dislocated shoulder.

The Paraguayan had to leave the field with half an hour gone against Swansea last weekend after suffering the injury when he landed hard following an aerial challenge with Wilfried Bony.

Roberto Martinez suggested to the media this afternoon that the club's medical staff will make a decision on whether or not Alcaraz needs surgery and that he expects him to be sidelined for between six and 12 weeks.

The 32-year-old had come into the side the replace John Stones who is also out injured until the end of December at the earliest and Martinez is now expected to draft Sylvain Distin into central defence.

Distin, who turns 37 next month, has been out of favour in recent matches but his manager insists he is a vital member of the team and he sees Alcaraz's absence as another opportunity for the Frenchman.

Martinez also gave updates on Bryan Oviedo and Arouna Kone, both of whom he expects to be fit and available after this month's international break.

The Ivorian has had some setbacks in his recovery from the knee operation he underwent a year ago and it had been reported in the last week that his manager wasn't hopeful of him returning to first-team action until the New Year. That timeframe appears to have shifted again based on Martinez's comments today.

Oviedo, though, is a more likely returnee later this month after turning out for the Under-21s earlier this week. The Costa Rican added an hour to the playing time he already has for the senior side against Swansea in the League Cup and Manchester United and seems to be approaching full readiness.

Finally, Darron Gibson has been declared fully fit after being left out of the squad for the draw against Swansea last Saturday as a precaution when he jarred his knee in training.

 

Reader Comments (20)

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Tony J Williams
1 Posted 05/11/2014 at 15:57:26
No surprise there then.

Make that a conservative guess at 3/4 months

Christopher Kelly
2 Posted 05/11/2014 at 16:57:45
Sad but true. Same sick notes time and time again. Painful truth of professional sports.

Some players are worth the wait to recover (NBA stars like Kobe, Derrick Rose) some are not (Alcaraz, Darron Gibson, Kone). Hate to say it but it's obvious at this point anything we get out them is bonus and we need them off the wage bill and with new cover asap.

Brian Cleveland
3 Posted 05/11/2014 at 17:07:59
I thought with a dislocated shoulder it was normally a case of just popping it back in... hurts like hell for a few days while the swelling goes down and nothing more.... or that's how it goes with my missus who regularly dislocates her shoulder (and boy does it look weird when she does!)... she just screams and shoves it back into place and gets on with life. I know she's not trying to muscle someone off the ball with her arms, but an operation? Did he rip all the muscle, ligament, cartilage, nerves, string and sticky tape too? Super glue anyone?

Damn unfortunate but he does seem to be jinxed....

Gerry Quinn
4 Posted 05/11/2014 at 17:13:45
Some players go through their whole careers with very few or even no injuries at all. Some are the direct opposite.

It seems to be all too easy nowadays for us to continually criticise a player and give them the tag of "sicknote" when, to me, it seems that some players are just downright unlucky when it comes down to the bones of it.

Manchester United defender Marcos Rojo and Sunderland full-back Patrick van Aanholt also suffered dislocated shoulders in the latest round of Premier League matches.

I'm sure that Alcaraz, Kone and Gibson don't go out of their way to suffer these serious and freak injuries deliberately. Oviedo never got criticised for such a serious set-back.

Can't we just lay off the silly name calling and all agree to what should come down to just plain and simple bad bloody luck?

Tony J Williams
5 Posted 05/11/2014 at 17:25:40
The double-sided sticky tape holding him together has lost its adhesive qualities, Brian.

Put him down, it's the best thing for him.... make some glue.

Lev Vellene
6 Posted 05/11/2014 at 17:26:43
Well, it seems there's one thing footie manager games get right, the hidden 'injury proneness' stat. I'm not good at these games at all, but having been exposed to them at an early age in the '80s & '90s, I always wondered why Moyes (especially) would get in these too-often-injured players. And why on earth Martinez didn't leave said players behind at Wigan...

The Saha deal was good, if I understood it correctly, pay-if-he-plays... Is there some reality to the football-scene that I, as an armchair manager (...), am totally unaware of? Are there any sort of histories about players plagued by injuries at an early age not continuing that trend?

Just wondering, as getting often-crocked players in has always baffled me...

James Stewart
7 Posted 05/11/2014 at 17:33:54
The point is we never should have signed him in the first place. It’s not like he wasn’t injury prone before he came here. Yes it was a free transfer but he has barely contributed anything positive in his whole contract here.
Frank Crewe
8 Posted 05/11/2014 at 18:06:37
Maybe they will remove his head and attach it to the body of a fit player but he would probably get a fractured skull and be out for another six months.

@Gerry Quinn. No we can't.

Darryl Ritchie
9 Posted 05/11/2014 at 17:51:19
Time for the club to face up to the situation. At some point in time, every player has to hang’em up. Whether it is injury, old age or just plain old lack of talent. Alcaraz’s body is ready to retire, even if he isn’t. (Kone is in the same boat.)

I feel for him. I played competitive rugby until I separated my left shoulder. That injury put me out for the season. I was 27.

I was all set to go next summer, when in training, I did very serious damage to my right shoulder. (3rd degree separation and partial dislocation). My rugby days were over, as well as my tennis and darts.

The spirit was willing, the body wasn’t.

John Audsley
10 Posted 05/11/2014 at 18:27:18
I don't blame Alcaraz, Kone, Oveido and Gibson for having serious/numerous injuries. It's extremely unlucky that Everton have 2/3 of them at any 1 time.

It's interesting what some people on ToffeeWeb would say if we went back a few years as Ferguson often missed long gaps in the season with bad injuries. I don't think he would get the abuse that the other lads have had.

Gerry Quinn
11 Posted 05/11/2014 at 18:43:16
Maybe this will put our "predicaments" in their priority...

http://www.physioroom.com/news/english_premier_league/2013_14/injury_analysis.php

Patrick Murphy
12 Posted 05/11/2014 at 18:56:10
If Howard Kendall had heeded the medical staff in the 1980s, Peter Reid and Andy Gray would have both been playing for different clubs and who knows... we may not have won anything in that period. A manager cannot legislate for injuries save for hoping he has back-up players in his squad.

Imagine that you have fought all your life to play football at the highest level and your body lets you down – how depressing must that be? I think it is far more important for a sports person to ply their trade week-in, week-out, than to happily accept the salary without kicking a ball in earnest.

Anthony Lamb
13 Posted 05/11/2014 at 21:50:05
I do wish people would stop linking Oviedo with the other players mentioned who are perpetually injured. Oviedo had his leg broken in a very physical, competitive occupation. This is unfortunate but an occupational hazard, so to speak. To the best of my knowledge, however, his record shows no evidence the he is unable to regularly cope with the general physical demands of his chosen profession.

In Gibson's case, however, it would appear that he is simply incapable of coping with the physical demands of the game illustrated by his falling foul to one form of ailment or another. Alcaraz would appear to be in the same boat.

Apart from the serious knee injury that Kone seems to be battling with, I am not aware of any consistent inability to cope with the general physical demands of the game... although I may be wrong. I would think that the general record of the likes of Gibson suggest that, rather than it being a case of "bad luck" he is simply not fit for the task of playing such a physical game.

Like any other employer, Everton have the right to dispense with the services of employees who are not capable of doing the job for which, in the case of footballers, they are obscenely paid. (But to do so of course within the terms of contractual law.) The injury sustained by Oviedo and the career long litany that characterises the likes of Gibson's career, I feel, are simply not in the same bracket.

Christopher Kelly
14 Posted 05/11/2014 at 23:17:34
Gerry obviously forgot about the infamous "muscle fatigue" syndrome.

Sorry, Gerry, a professional footballer (especially one who has months off to prepare his body post injury) should not be suffering from something like this for months on end. Time to be a little tougher on our guys.

Completely agree, Oviedo is off the list, same with every other player that gets injured from a contact play. It's the non-contact injuries that happen that constitute a sicknote.

Gerry Quinn
15 Posted 06/11/2014 at 00:41:20
On the professional footballers, or the professional medical staff, Christopher? We have no backroom knowledge of what these situations are yet we criticize the players endlessly.

I can remember Duncan Ferguson's continual issues, yet it all boiled down to some kind of problem with his groin.

I am not one to get on a player's back purely because he has a history of injuries. I am sure that, if there was something not quite genuine, then Everton would get rid.

Dennis Stevens
16 Posted 06/11/2014 at 01:00:51
I'd have thought that Alcaraz will probably suffer regular repetition of his shoulder dislocation unless he has it operated upon.
Harold Matthews
17 Posted 06/11/2014 at 01:30:43
He could be back mid-Feb and we might need him.
Christopher Kelly
18 Posted 06/11/2014 at 03:27:19
I'm not even that upset at the players, Gerry (Kone and Gibson in particular) how could anyone of right mind actually be? We are the ones that brought these sorts of players in. That's why they're so cheap. Gibson was £1M and Alcaraz was on a free. Why? Because they're not available that often.

The players want to play and they want to get paid. It's up to us as a team to make smarter choices when handing out £30k, £40k a week. In a year when we have 4 competitions, I don't see the need to carry excess cargo. We knew what we had in these types and yet they're still here. That's my gripe.

Pete Edwards
19 Posted 06/11/2014 at 09:40:02
Christopher @14,

So, by your explanation, this injury to Alcaraz is okay as it was a contact injury? I know he’s had plenty of other non-contact injuries during his time here but, by your own comments given, he should be free from getting stick for dislocating his shoulder – after all, there was contact!

Will Firstbrook
20 Posted 06/11/2014 at 15:06:44
Bad luck for him.

I suffered with reoccurring shoulder dislocations for years due to a torn labrum (which initially occurred while playing footy) until I finally had it surgically repaired. With this problem (dislocations in general), you can try and rehab and hope for the best but generally, once it pops out, the likelihood of it doing so again increases significantly as all the surrounding soft tissue is stretched making the joint increasingly more unstable (especially shoulders).

Depending on the nature of the injury and assuming the club have long-term plans for him, it's likely worthwhile getting it surgically fixed now.


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