Everton vs Tottenham result: Andre Gomes’ injury is an untimely reminder of the cruelty of the beautiful game

More than most, Seamus Coleman is aware of the damage a tackle can do. It is two-and-a-half years now since a game between the Republic of Ireland and Wales was disfigured by Neil Taylor’s horrific lunge at the right-back. Coleman fractured a tibia and fibula. He was out for almost a year.

So perhaps it was doubly significant that Coleman visited the Tottenham’ dressing room at Goodison Park, seeking out a distraught Son Heung-min. Andre Gomes’ season was surely ended, his hopes of playing a part in Euro 2020 almost certainly destroyed, his right ankle probably seriously injured, after the South Korean’s challenge. “It’s not your fault,” Coleman told Son. “These things happen.” Perhaps Coleman, sent off last month for a mistimed but not malicious challenge on Burnley’s Erik Pieters, can empathise but as he showed that his leadership qualities are not confined to Everton and Ireland, Tottenham were grateful.

“I want to say thank you to the players of Everton. The captain Seamus Coleman came to the dressing room to console Son,” said Mauricio Pochettino. What it also indicated was that Coleman felt Son was the second victim of an awful injury. His punishment is lesser – a mandatory three-match ban for a straight red card, albeit one that came after he had initially been given a yellow – but also comes in the knowledge that he injured a fellow professional.

“I am 100 percent sure Son didn’t do it with one intention to do anything bad,” Everton manager Marco Silva said. It was also the immediate reaction of Cenk Tosun, who sought to comfort Son on the pitch. Had he not been sent off, he seemed so upset he might not have been able to continue anyway. “Son is devastated and in tears,” said Dele Alli, who saw him in the dressing room afterwards. “It’s not his fault. Son is one of nicest people you’ve ever met. He can’t even lift his head up, he’s crying so much.”

If Everton’s response reflected well on them, a welcome antidote to the rush to blame anyone and everyone, perhaps it reflects Son’s reputation as one of the game’s nicest guys that they accepted there was no malice. But maybe it showed the bond between players, a recognition of the perils of their profession. Injuries are an occupational hazard. A year can be irrevocably altered in a second. Some of the worst injuries are not caused by the worst tackles.

“I wish we lost 5-0 and this didn’t happen,” said Tosun, taking little solace from his equaliser. Perhaps Gomes is Everton’s version of Son, one of the most popular members of their squad. The multilingual midfielder’s friends include his fellow Portuguese and Spanish speakers, but he is also close to Theo Walcott.

He is regarded as one of Everton’s thinkers. Off the pitch, he has been exploring England, visiting the Lake District, trying to understand the culture of Liverpool. On it, he is a silky passer, and a man who dovetailed well with Idrissa Gueye in Everton’s spring surge, when they briefly appeared Goodison Park’s answer to Andrea Pirlo and Gennaro Gattuso. Now one is sold, the other sidelined. “I am 100 percent sure he will become stronger as a football player and a man,” Silva said. “He is a fantastic man and a fantastic professional.”

“So, so bad luck,” said Pochettino, seemingly referring to both players. “It was not intentional.” Perhaps, though, it was an intent to foul, though not to injure. Gomes was actually hurt when his right foot landed after Son’s lunge, his foot at a right angle to his leg. It was not an inherently dangerous tackle, but it was one where it was debatable whether he stood a realistic chance of getting the ball.

There is a legitimate question of the cynical foul ought to be a straight red card, as Matteo Guendouzi’s rugby-style tackle on Wilfried Zaha should surely have been; if so, this might have fallen into that category. As it was, former players such as Michael Owen and Jamie Carragher argued that, regardless of the severity of the injury, Son’s challenge did not warrant expulsion.

But referee Martin Atkinson changed a yellow card to a red, seemingly on orders. The Premier League were swift to issue a statement, reading: “The red card for Son was for endangering the safety of a player which happened as a consequence of his initial challenge.”

“It was unbelievable he received the red card,” added Pochettino. While he wished Gomes well, it was probably not the ideal moment to voice those sentiments, or to complain about VAR – “it is a creating a big, big mess,” – or, indeed, to argue that his side would probably have won had they finished the game with 11 men.

Nor, indeed, was it the time to consider the implications for Everton, deprived of their first-choice midfield axis of Jean-Philippe Gbamin and Gomes. It was merely a day to think of the stricken, stretchered-off Gomes and the distressed Son, of the cruelty of the beautiful game.