Welsh Football Shows Huge Love And Support For Tom Lockyer
Welsh football breathed a huge collective sigh of relief over the weekend, when Tom Lockyer was declared to be stable and responsive after suffering a cardiac arrest on Saturday.
The Luton Town captain remains in hospital where he is undergoing tests and scans after collapsing during his club’s abandoned Premier League clash with Bournemouth.
Luton were drawing 1-1 at the Vitality Stadium when the Wales defender fell in the middle of the field – just seven months after a similar incident in last season’s Championship Play-off Final.
Lockyer had surgery to correct an irregular heartbeat in June.
Paramedics and staff, including Luton manager Rob Edwards, immediately sprinted to Lockyer’s aid when he went down near in the second half.
A club statement on Sunday afternoon confirmed: “While our captain Tom Lockyer remains in hospital following the cardiac arrest he suffered on the pitch at Bournemouth yesterday, we understand that supporters are concerned for him and that there is widespread media interest in his condition.
“Tom is still undergoing tests and scans, and is awaiting the results before the next steps for his recovery are determined.
On the pitch, leaderless Swansea City can still get the man they need, according to caretaker boss Alan Sheehan.
The club’s failure to land their target Chris Davies as their new head coach was compounded at the weekend by a 2-1 home defeat to Middlesbrough.
Davies has chosen to reject Swansea’s advances in order to stay on as an assistant to Ange Postecoglou at Tottenham.
His decision was an unexpected slap in the face for those at the Swansea-com Stadium, but also a sobering reminder of their inexperience.
But stand-in Sheehan – who cannot be counted out of the running for the permanent role – believes the right man can still be found to succeed Michael Duff, who was sacked at the start of the month.
“It’s a thorough process and I’m sure they’ll get the right guy,” said Sheehan.
“We know where we want to get to as a football club. You see where it’s been and you see where we want to get back to.”
Cardiff City’s slide continued as they lost 3-0 away to Hull City to drop to 12th in the Championship table.
Manager Erol Bulut and his men can have few complaints. Hull were far superior in every department.
To his credit, Bulut made few excuses and admitted: “We saw the quality difference between the two teams.
“When you want to be in the play-off positions we have to show much, much more – we are far away from that (reaching the top six).
“We didn’t show anything. Maybe in the past I said we want to be around the play-offs, and maybe that was too much pressure on the players.
“I have to ask myself about that. Maybe it was too much for some of the players.
“I try to get the maximum from the team. Maybe I try to ask too much of the players too quickly.”
Wrexham overcame the loss of George Evans to a straight red card to beat Colchester United 2-1 at home and maintain their promotion surge in league Two.
But despite victory, Wrexham dropped a place to third in the table as Barrow went above them on goal difference thanks to a 3-0 at Swindon Town.
Manager Phil Parkinson said: “That’s a colossus effort from the lads and I’m very proud of the performance today.
“We got the early goal and then the sending off. Colchester have got some very good technical players and some dangerous players in and around the box.
“It’s a real effort from the lads today. Throughout the season you get so many different types of games and challenges and today was a different problem for us to solve and I thought we did it really well.”
Newport County couldn’t solve the problem of Grimsby at Rodney Parade, though, and had to settle for a 1-1 draw.
Newport remain 17th in League Two, while Grimsby are two points below in 18th.
It left manager Graham Coughlan threatening to create some upheaval in his squad.
“I think we deserved to win and should have won but we chucked it away,” he said.
“Again, it was the unreliability and lack of a clean sheet. One or two players I want to be able to trust let me down. They don’t normally do that but it was a very soft goal.
“We are just chucking points away too easily and I have to address that. One or two players will need to be changed, one or two things will need to happen to stop that.”