Broken leg 'not as bad as feared' for Joel Catesby | OneFootball

After more than a week, Everton have finally decided to reveal the true extent of Joel Catesby's horrible injury that he sustained playing for the Under-21s against Bradford City last Tuesday.

"He’s broken his fibula, but not his tibia, so it’s more positive than we first expected," Paul Tait said.

“He also had an ankle dislocation, but the medical staff on the night put it straight back in, so it’s limited the ligament damage.

“So, he’s got a dislocation and a fractured fibula to recover from, but it’s better than we first thought. We managed to get him back to Aintree Hospital where we have a specialist, who did the operation on Friday. He’s back home and he’ll be coming into Finch Farm soon.

“Our medical team did a brilliant job from their response to post-operation, so I’d like to thank them for their efforts – both on the night and in the days since.”

On the expected timescale for his recovery, Tait added: “I think it’s four to six months, which is another positive because when I saw the injury, I was thinking more like a year.”

But no explanation why it took a whole week for this story to appear on the Everton website, when the full extent of the damage would have been confirmed with the scan he had at Bradford Hospital, either on  Tuesday night or Wednesday morning of last week.

Reader Comments (5)

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2 Posted 22/10/2025 at 14:09:28

The club are slow to almost backward at saying anything not first-team related.

Good to hear it's not as bad as first thought but, like Branthwaite, it's a long time to be out when you are wanting to progress.