Crocked St Johnstone centre back Steven Anderson may have needed complex surgery on a dislocated thumb over the weekend, but sympathy was in short supply when he arrived back at McDiarmid Park.
The 27-year-old injured his hand during Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Partick Thistle having slipped in the build-up to Kris Doolan’s opener for the visitors and was led off the field screaming in agony.
A late-night operation was needed to re-set his thumb and repair some of the associated damage, and the long road to recovery starts now for the disappointed defender.
But while the pain will inevitably fade as the weeks go on, the kind of ribbing he has received from his team-mates in the last couple of days shows no sign of letting up.
Fellow defender Frazer Wright started the ball rolling in his post-match interview, mocking the awkward angle Anderson’s thumb was at by suggesting he was going to “buy him one of those foam hands”, and Anderson who is likely to be sidelined for around two months wasn’t entirely surprised.
“I wouldn’t expect the lads to give me any sympathy it’s not that kind of dressing room,” he admitted. “I heard they all had a good laugh about it and I’ve read what they’ve said about me. To be fair, if it was someone else I’d probably be giving them it as well so I can’t complain.
“But it was agony, the worst pain I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve broken bones before but that was nothing like this.
“It was just a slip but I’ve obviously landed the wrong way and the thumb has popped out. I’ll watch it back and see exactly what happened. All I know is that it was sore.”
After Saints’ club physio and doctor tried and failed to re-set his thumb on the pitch, he was initially taken to hospital in Perth but subsequently needed a trip to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee where a specialist hand surgeon was called.
“He gave me a few local injections but I could still feel it and he wasn’t able to fix it,” Anderson said. “After that he knocked me out and apparently spent an hour trying to sort it before deciding he needed to open me up.
“He’s said that it was a mess when he got into it. There’s a lot of damage to the nerves, ligaments and the tendons.
“When I woke up I thought it would be a few weeks because it’s only a thumb, but the doctor is wary of how long it could be.
“He says it needs to be stabilised because it might pop out again.
“I was shocked when he said it could be two months. Hopefully I’ll be back before then but we’ll just have to wait and see.
“The one good thing is that we’ve got the international break coming up so that takes two weeks out of it.”