Like a figure in the corner, the ghost of his broken metatarsal still haunts Tim Cahill.  The Australian midfielder limped out of Everton’s 2-2 draw with Werder Bremen, and assistant manager Alan Irvine said:

He felt his foot which is a bit of a worry.

Can you feel your foot?  If so, be worried.  Irvine continues:

It obviously gave him a bit of a fright but we will just make sure he is ok.

I imagine a lullaby and a soothing hot drink will settle him down again.  In seriousness, it seems the curse of the metatarsal break is refusing to relinquish its grip on footballers across the land.  And arguably, as the number of games players play each season increases, these injuries will continue to occur more frequently.  This study looked at the metatarsal fractures suffered by David Beckham, Michael Owen, and Danny Murphy:

It is interesting to note that the three injured England squad members played significantly more games than the average for their respective clubs; this is partly complicated by the success of the clubs, thus imposing more games on the players in a regular season. Moreover, although the exact type of fractures sustained by these players remains unknown, the relative innocuousness of the challenges or tackles that led to the injuries has been demonstrated clearly on television. The theory of repetitive loading compounded by muscle fatigue leading to a predisposition for stress fractures, seems well-founded in these circumstances. Similarly, the three injuries occurred towards the end of the football season, in which, with the possible exception of David Beckham, the players were fully involved, to an extent which may have left them vulnerable to stress fractures. Further work is indicated with regard to screening vulnerable athletes. It is possible that there is an argument for rest intervals in order for bone strains to decline, but this is merely a hypothesis at this stage. The recent calls by Sven Goran Eriksson and Arsene Wenger to the Football Association to insert a winter break into the football season may prove to have a scientific basis after all.

It’s not be one for the purists, but unless we want all our players to be “feeling their feet” sometime soon, a Christmas rest might be the only solution.