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Joel Catesby in action for Everton Under-21s before his injury in the Vertu Trophy match at Bradford City(Image: George Wood\/Getty Images)<\/p>\nEverton have confirmed how long they expect Joel Catesby to be out for after he suffered a broken fibula and ankle dislocation in the Vertu Trophy clash at Bradford CityJoel Catesby in action for Everton Under-21s before his injury in the Vertu Trophy match at Bradford City(Image: George Wood\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Everton youngster Joel Catesby could be back in action in just four months after quick-thinking from medical staff proved crucial in the aftermath of his terrible injury. There were fears the winger could face a year on the sidelines after he suffered a broken fibula and ankle dislocation in the Under-21s\u2019 Vertu Trophy defeat at Bradford City last Tuesday (October 14).<\/p>\n
But the work of club staff and medical experts appears to have prevented the worst and the 18-year-old underwent surgery on Friday (October 17).<\/p>\n
Catesby now faces an expected recovery time of between four and six months, Everton<\/a> U21s manager Paul Tait said as he acknowledged the work of those who helped him at Valley Parade and in the week since.<\/p>\n READ MORE: ‘God, who’s this?’ – Everton starlet making pros pay attention with big future predicted<\/a>READ MORE: Cruel Jarrad Branthwaite injury blow came with David Moyes plotting his Everton return<\/a><\/p>\n Tait said: \u201cThe setback is not as severe as what was first feared.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s broken his fibula, but not his tibia, so it\u2019s more positive than we first expected. He also had an ankle dislocation, but the medical staff on the night put it straight back in, so it\u2019s limited the ligament damage.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, he\u2019s got a dislocation and a fractured fibula to recover from, but it\u2019s better than we first thought.<\/p>\n \u201cWe managed to get him back to Aintree<\/a> Hospital where we have a specialist, who did the operation on Friday. He\u2019s back home and he\u2019ll be coming into Finch Farm<\/a> soon.<\/p>\n \u201cOur medical team did a brilliant job from their response to post-operation, so I\u2019d like to thank them for their efforts – both on the night and in the days since.\u201d<\/p>\n Team-mates and club staff have maintained regular contact with Catesby, while head of academy coaching Carl Darlington has had daily contact with the player\u2019s parents.<\/p>\n On the expected timescale for his recovery, Tait said: \u201cI think it\u2019s four to six months, which is another positive because when I saw the injury, I was thinking more like a year.\u201d<\/p>\n Detailing the treatment received by Catesby, and the importance of that work, Peter Beirne, Everton\u2019s head of academy medical, said: \u201cMatty Lowe, who is the physio, and Dr Tom Newton, looked over Joel initially during the fast response and a lot of people have noted how quick they were.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously that helps in an injury like this, getting that immediate assistance and stabilising the injury.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, following that, Joel went to Bradford Hospital. He’s had a fractured fibula and ankle dislocation.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was relocated on pitch and then when he got to Bradford, a lot of the initial treatment was already done, besides confirming the injury through imaging.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was put in a plaster and the idea then would be just to get him back home and to see our ankle experts.<\/p>\n \u201cJoel returned home and then, fortunately, on the Thursday morning we were able to see the guy we would like to see, who is Lyndon Mason. He works out of Aintree Hospital and the club have used him before.<\/p>\n \u201cHe did the assessments and then decided on the type of surgery required and this was done on the Friday at Aintree Hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everton have confirmed how long they expect Joel Catesby to be out for after he suffered a broken…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2689,218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-215636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-everton-fc","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}