Everton: Sky Sports pundit drops ‘detrimental’ verdict as confirmed injury likely to end season before exit
We’re delighted to welcome former Everton striker Kevin Campbell as our exclusive columnist. Each week the former Toffees captain will be giving his views on the biggest talking points at Goodison Park…
Ruben Vinagre’s injury is the “sad part” of football but cannot be avoided and doesn’t mean his spell at Everton was a waste of time, says Kevin Campbell.
Sean Dyche confirmed in his pre-match press conference on 20 April that the Portuguese was out with a long-term injury that may require surgery, making it highly unlikely that he won’t be seen again before his loan spell ends.
That leaves the 24-year-old set to exit Goodison Park having played only four times, with just 24 minutes coming in the Premier League, but since he was signed to be a back-up Campbell believes the move made sense and injuries were an unfortunate byproduct.
The Sky Sports pundit spoke exclusively to Goodison News and said: “Well, waste of time? I think he was coming in to be cover anyway.
“He wasn’t coming in to be a full starter.
“But the one thing you can’t legislate for is injury. Players don’t get injured because they want to.
“Players get injured because it’s part and parcel of the job unfortunately.
“So the fact that he’s only played 24 minutes isn’t a detriment to him.
“But the fact that is detrimental is he’s injured, and he can’t help if need be.
“That’s the sad part.”
Everton have had more than their fair share of failures in the transfer market, but not seeing much out of a back-up left-back isn’t high on the list.
Vitalii Mykolenko has been virtually ever-present this season, and while there will be arguments for the Toffees needing an upgrade on the Ukrainian he was the starter coming into the season so expecting Vinagre to tear up the Premier League would have been too much.
That said, when Mykolenko missed the draw at Nottingham Forest on 5 March and was subsequently left out of the starting XI for the next four games by Sean Dyche plenty of people would have rather a specialist came in than Ben Godfrey being used out of position, so it was unfortunate that by then Vinagre hadn’t been seen in an Everton shirt since 8 November in the Carabao Cup loss at Bournemouth.
It likely won’t go down as a high point in the Sporting man’s career, and all parties will surely just move on in the summer.