Martinez hopeful that Gibson will play again this season despite cruciate ligament injury

Martinez hopeful that Gibson will play again this season despite cruciate ligament injury

Roberto Martinez has raised the prospect of Darron Gibson playing again this season after insisting the news surrounding his damaged cruciate ligament is 'positive'.
The Everton midfielder was stretchered off during the Republic of Ireland's World Cup qualifier with Kazaksthan on Tuesday night when he is knee buckled as he battled for possession.
He has ruptured his ligament and such injuries usually mean an entire season being written off.

Hope: Darron Gibson might be able to play again before the end of the season

Problem: Gibson went off on a stretcher during the Republic of Ireland's game against Kazakhstan

 

But Martinez, who was in the crowd at the Aviva Stadium, has delivered an upbeat bulletin now that he has had chance to study the scans of Gibson's knee and is cautiously optimistic that he will be able to come back before the end of the campaign, providing his rehabilitation goes according to plan.
Martinez said: 'It was a real disappointment. I was watching and straight away you could see that it was a bad one. But thankfully after we had the scans yesterday, the news was very positive.
'It is ACL damage but the whole structure of the knee has not been affected so that makes the recovery straightforward. He will be operated on now but there is a chance he could play again this season.
'His knee reacted really well (to the trauma) and nothing else was damaged bar the ligament. It can be really difficult if there are other areas damaged then but this was just a rupture.
'We will make sure that his knee is repaired and he can get back to working perfectly.
'There was no sense that he was overworked. If it was in the 80th minute then maybe you could say fatigue was an issue. But this was in the first half an hour.
'He looked good during game with James McCarthy and the way he was working with their partnership. It was just unfortunate, one of those moments that you can't do anything about.
'I admit that I feared the worst. I thought it would be an injury that would be difficult to overcome. But after the scan we were really positive.
'It's not good to look back and we want to see him playing for us again as soon as possible.'
Martinez was also delighted with how left back Leighton Baines coped with playing in two crucial England games.
The defender started against Montenegro and Poland because of an injury to Ashley Cole.
The Everton's manager said: 'I am looking at the outstanding contribution over the two games. He showed just where he is in his career.
'He really enjoyed himself against Poland. There are not many left-backs in world football who can do what he can. Phil Jagielka perfomed with real confidence too.
'Him and Gary Cahill did a job on Lewandowski. When I see Leighton performing, he is someone who brings the complete package. It is very difficult to find another one like him when you consider what he does in the final third and what he does at the back.'
Bad news for Martinez comes in the form of injury news for Steven Pienaar and Antolin Alcaraz.
The former will not be fit for the weekend's game against Hull because of a knee problem, while the latter is set to be out for three weeks with a groin injury

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