The injury was sustained during wednesday night’s friendly with Preston North End at Deepdale.
A seemingly innocuous challenge by returning North End favourite Youl Mawene saw the precocious England striker fall to the ground clutching his shoulder in pain.
Indeed the incident seemed so low key that home fans believed the Everton striker to be unscrupulously claiming a freekick – he was stretchered off five minutes later to ground-wide applause however.
Everton and former Preston physio Mick Rathbone told the official site, ‘James was absolutely devastated when we took him off the park.
‘He had rationalised a little by the time I went to see him later in the hospital and he had his family around him. But his reaction when we took him into the dressing room is probably the most upset psychologically I have seen a player in 30 years, he was devastated.’
Everyone at everton.vitalfootball.co.uk would like to wish James a speedy recovery. James was set to go into this season along side Andrew Johnson in attack, underlining his development over the past six months.
Get well James…
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