The thoughts of the football community are with Andre Gomes after the Everton midfielder suffered a sickening injury during Sunday’s Premier League match against Tottenham.The Portugal international was left in agony in the 79th minute following a challenge by Son Heung-min, who was left in tears after seeing the extent of his opponent’s injury.Other players - both teammates and opponents of Gomes’ - knew this was a serious injury as soon as they saw the position his ankle was in.Following a six-minute stoppage, in which medics tended to Gomes, the midfielder was taken to hospital.Son, meanwhile, was controversially shown a red card by referee Martin Atkinson, who initially showed the South Korean forward a yellow card.

Later on Sunday, Everton revealed the extent of Gomes’ injury via Twitter.

“Everton Football Club can confirm Andre Gomes will undergo surgery tomorrow (Monday November 4) after sustaining an ankle injury in today’s game with Tottenham Hotspur.

“Andre was stretchered from the pitch during the second half off the game and was taken straight to Aintree Hospital by ambulance accompanied by members of the Everton medical team.

“After undergoing hospital tests, it was confirmed he had suffered a fracture dislocation to his right ankle.

“The club will provide further updates in due course.”

Soon afterwards, doctor Bran Sutterer posted an interesting video on YouTube explaining everything about Gomes’ ankle - from how it happened, to the recovery process.

How it happened

Explaining what happened, Sutterer says on the video: “Basically, what’s happening here is his foot is going into a severe amount of rotation while his leg is planted into the ground. When this force becomes so overwhelming, you ultimately can tear the ligaments in the ankle - and then if it continues, cause the actual ankle to fracture, like what happened here with Gomes.

“This is the exact mechanism that we see when someone suffers a high ankle sprain, except in this case the force just becomes so overwhelming that not only do you injure the ligaments, but you can also fracture the ankle.

“Looking at this image we can see that his foot looks like it’s pointed out in relation to his tibia - or to his shinbone. The foot here is in an externally rotated position. If we have that talus and we have it enclosed by the tibia and fibula, and then we extremely rotate externally in that talus, it’s going to force that tibia and fibula to spread apart as that bone is rotated.”

What medical staff needed to do

He then spoke about what the medical staff would have done immediately after seeing the extent of the injury.

“Right away on the field, there are a couple of things the medical team need to focus on to try and ensure the safety of his leg going forward,” he continued.

“The key here is all about blood flow and trying to reduce the risk of infection. They’re going to make sure there’s proper blood flow and then they’re going to try and reduce and relocate, if possible, that ankle joint. When you reduce it, you’re basically getting those bones back into proper alignment and then putting some sort of cast around it to make sure they stay in proper alignment before you get to the hospital.”

What does it mean long-term for Gomes's career?

In terms of what this means for Gomes’s career, Sutterer expects Gomes will be able to return to action, depending on the extent of the damage to the muscles, nerves, tendons and ligaments.

“Finally, what does this mean long-term for his career? We’ve seen this type of injury in other sports and we’ve seen athletes come back from it. You can come back from these injuries,” the doctor adds.

“It’s not so much how the bones will heal when you have a fracture, as much as it is how the muscles, the nerves and the tendons and ligaments can be damaged whenever you have these types of injuries.

“Generally the bone heals pretty well, even if it was a compound fracture where the bone came through the skin, you control the infections, you fix the bone and usually it does pretty good.

“What’s harder to recover from is the damage to the ligaments in the ankle that can get torn, if there’s been damage to the muscle or the nerves, those are the things that are ultimately going to determine how well someone is able to come back from this type of injury.”

Could anything have been done to prevent it?

The American doctor also says there’s nothing Gomes - or anybody else - can do to prevent this type of injury.

“With something like this, there’s nothing you can do,” he says. “There is nothing Gomes could have done to prevent this from happening to his leg. No amount of exercise, weight lifting or anything is going to prevent the ligaments from breaking in this situation - and then, ultimately, leading to the broken bones.”

Watch the video in full here...

We wish Andre a speedy recovery and hope to see him back in action as soon as possible.