Martinez positive on Gibson injury

Darron Gibson ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament during Ireland's win against Kazakhstan
18 October 2013

Everton manager Roberto Martinez remains positive midfielder Darron Gibson can return this season despite rupturing an anterior cruciate ligament on international duty.

The Republic of Ireland international was carried off on a stretcher in the first half of Tuesday's match against Kazakhstan and less than 24 hours later the club announced he would have to have an operation on his knee.

However, Martinez insists the 25-year-old's season is not over and he hopes the midfielder, who has been troubled by a number of injuries over the last 12 months, can return stronger.

"It was a real disappointment on Tuesday night," said the Spaniard.

"I was watching the game and straight away you could see it was an innocuous incident and that is normally when you pick up really bad injuries.

"I was really fearful of expecting the worst but with the scans on Wednesday we are very positive now.

"It is an ACL but the whole structure of the knee is perfectly fine and it is going to be straightforward surgery.

"I'm looking forward to seeing him back hopefully this season and that in a way was good, positive news taking into consideration what it could have been.

"The ACL is ruptured but his knee reacted really well and nothing else was damaged - in those sort of actions you normally get more than one structure damaged and some of those are very difficult to repair.

"You can imagine it is really disappointing to lose Darron for whatever space of time but we are all very positive that when he comes back he will come back stronger.

"We will use this period to get Darron working on other aspects of his fitness and making sure his knee is going to be perfectly repaired and ready for whenever he is back."

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