Not my words (as ever) but those from the home page of Conor McAleny’s Twitter account. When I first wrote this on Sunday, news as to the extent of his injury in the game against Walsall had yet to be released. The only real information we had was Uwe’s interview from Saturday night where he described it as ‘Very, very nasty’.
The way he went to ground and the length of time he was being treated left us fearing the worst but hoping things weren’t as bad as they looked. Although there has been no official statement from either Brentford or Everton, Conor himself took to Twitter on Sunday evening to confirm:
“Absolutely devastated about breaking my leg yesterday.. Never been this down in my life. No point dwellin on it now because thats football.. .. And these things happen. I know for a fact i’ll come back a stronger person physically and mentally. Thanks for the kind words people x “
It’s terrible news for a player whom, from the brief glimpses we have already been afforded as to his prodigious talent, would seem to have a fantastic future ahead of him. So I’ll wish him good luck, a speedy recovery and fingers crossed we’ll see you back at Griffin (and Goodison) Park sooner than later.
On the pitch, it was a case of three more points in an exciting, albeit buttock-clenching, game. All the more impressive given the weather was wetter than Coldplay and Keane composing lovesongs whilst drinking dilute tea on the ocean floor. Brentford dominated the first half and Adam Forshaw must have thought he had bettered his goal against Sheffield United with a rasping shot that had the goalkeeper beaten all ends up.
If anything, he hit it too well and but for the crossbar (how many times have we heard THAT at Griffin Park?) could have had another contender for ‘goal of the season’. Certainly it was a strike reaching the 110% marker on the ‘Wellness scale of shot methods’.
To read the rest of this article, season 2013/14 is now available to download onto Kindle, in full. Containing previously unseen content, you can do so here for less than the cost of one matchday programme.
Thanks for reading over the course of the campaign. For now I need to make space on this page for any follow up. The ‘close season’ / World Cup columns continue in full, further on in this site.