Gomes injured as Everton grab late point

Everton scored a very late equaliser to earn a point against Tottenham but lose Andre Gomes to a serious injury and are again on the wrong end of a controversial VAR decision.

So can this season get much worse? Despite Everton managing to grab a very late equaliser this afternoon at Goodison Park, with Gomes’ injury and VAR again intervening against the Blues, this feels like another awful afternoon.

First of all to Gomes. It certainly looks like he has suffered a very serious leg injury, possibly a broken leg ,which if so would rule him out for the rest of this season at least I would imagine.

Let’s just hope for the player and for Everton’s sake that it’s not as bad as it first looked. Son tackled him recklessly and Gomes fell awkwardly, something that so often leads to such bad injuries.

This incident happened after the Blues had a shout for a penalty from what looked a handball. It was reviewed by VAR, and of course refused by the officials looking at it for nearly five minutes!!

Had it been given and had the Toffees scored it, then they would possibly have claimed all three points today in what would have been a big win.

So yet again luck deserts Everton and we end up thinking what might have been while everyone wonders just what the Blues need to do to get a VAR decision in their favour.

Losing the Portuguese midfielder is huge blow and yet more damage for the Blues season. Gomes is probably Everton’s most technically accomplished and creative player and he has become perhaps the first name on the team sheet.

Although he’s not always been at his best this campaign, there is no one else who can replace him and what he offers the side.

However despite all this stuff, this game had been largely forgettable for the most part, as two teams struggling for form and confidence looked like they were going to play out a pretty dull 0-0 draw.

In the second half Dele Alli put Spurs ahead following a bad mistake from Alex Iwobi and then we had the VAR intervention. After a shout for a penalty was reviewed, it took ages for the officials to make a decision and when they eventually did, surprise, surprise it went against the Blues.

Then came Gomes injury. It was clear immediately after he went down that it was very bad as all the players around him looked horrified.

It’s not easy to know whether Son’s tackle was the real cause, although it was a very poor challenge. To add to the confusion, after initially giving him a yellow card, Martin Atkinson then changed his mind and gave him red!

I just hope and pray Gomes can come back from this and that it’s not going to effectively be the end of his career. So often even if players come back from a serious leg injury, they are never quite the same again. Think of Bryan Oviedo, Seamus Coleman and James McCarthy.

When the game eventually re-started Everton made a decent fist of it at last and finally managed to get that equaliser with a minute or so of injury time left as substitute Cenk Tosun’s header secured a point.

So then what to make of all this?

First of all a word about the officials in the Premier League. The standard of refereeing in this league is falling through the floor and once again we had a dreadfully inept performance from Atkinson.

It’s not just in Everton’s games this is apparent, although we do always seem to get the worst end of the stick. The Premier League has got to get to grips with this problem because it’s threatening to ruin their precious product.

And on that note you’ve got to ask too what is the point of VAR!? We were told when it was brought in it would help clarify unclear situations and bring more certainly to refereeing decisions!

In fact it doing the exact opposite. Every week we have almost endless discussion and debate about the latest set of highly controversial and dubious decisions that are being made, because human interpretation and error are actually being accentuated and highlighted, not corrected by VAR.

The obsession with technology as a panacea is a wider problem in society than just sport. Cameras and computers don’t solve issues that are always essentially about human perception and interpretation.

I’ve written before at length about VAR and why I don’t think it’s right for our game, so I don’t need to go back over all that ground. But the standard of officiating in VAR, just like refereeing on the pitch, is truly abysmal too.

Everton have now been on the wrong end of two decisions in the past two weeks that have possibly cost them four crucial points.

After a ludicrous decision to award Brighton a penalty last weekend, today we had to wait an age for a decision on what looked a handball that then wasn’t given in the Toffees favour! Imagine if Man City, United or them across Stanley Park were on the end of such decisions, we’d never hear the end of it!

Can someone please tell me what is going on and will the FA look into this dreadful situation? I think I know the answer to that question!

More from Prince Rupert's Tower

• Everton 0 Arsenal 1: Blues fall to third home defeat
• Further chaos in Everton takeover as other lenders not keen on 777 Partners
• Everton need repeat of Arsenal win to kick-start their season on Sunday
• More madness at Everton as Moshiri now agrees to sell club to 777 Partners
• Everton takeover talk cools after UK govt doubts and further questions

However after all the dust settles in this latest drama, the truth is that the Blues now seem to be, unbelievably, in a relegation battle although the league is very tight and a few wins could lift them up the table.

Today’s draw means that Everton are still way off the pace and stuck in 17th place. Given the mediocre performances the team are producing at the moment, there is little hope of that position improving much any time soon. Perhaps this late draw will prove a turning point..?

However as the board continue to drag their feet about doing the only thing we can to change this situation, there’s no obvious solution either and so it goes on and on.