If you haven’t heard so far, Petr Cech’s injury, which needed immediate surgery for a depressed skull fracture, means that the Chelsea first-choice goalkeeper will be out of action for a long time.
The best case scenario here is touted as a month, but even then there is a significant recovery period attached with the severity of the damage to the bone and because the injury is on such a sensitive spot, Cech could be out for several months, with some experts giving conservative estimates of 6 months.
You can read more about the surgery here and here. There has been no official response as yet from the Chelsea camp, although they have backed Mourinho’s post-match comments (which, if you recall, were made after watching video replays and personally monitoring Cech’s condition in the dressing room) and can be expected to take the matter as far as possible.
I wrote here about what I think will happen – namely that Chelsea will appeal and the FA will refuse to do anything about it. It’s a case of recklessness rather than malicious intent but intent alone is not sufficient to warrant or deny punishment – Hunt chose to put another life in danger and for that there should be some retribution. Similarly, Sonko merited at least a yellow card for his ridiculously timed jump – if Ferdinand can get a yellow card for a legitimate tackle, that was a yellow hands down.
Ultimately, this will raise the same old questions – how do we apply the rules fairly and even-handedly in all situations and how do we cope with incidents such as Ben Thatcher’s elbow, Hunt’s knee and Essien’s challenge on Hamann (not all in the same category, but all of them had the same impact).
Chelsea are right this time around, but unfortunately they remain the same obnoxious bastards that they have always been and they will not get the media on their side for this, which could prove crucial to any chance they had of getting a fair deal from this mess.
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