Jean-Philippe Mateta to wear Petr Cech-style 'water polo helmet' on Crystal Palace return
The Crystal Palace striker will wear the Petr Cech-style head protection against Fulham after needing 25 stitches in his ear in the sixth-round win over Millwall
Jean-Philippe Mateta will wear a Petr Cech-style “water polo helmet” to protect his ear when he returns to FA Cup action, according to Oliver Glasner. And the Crystal Palace boss insisted he has no fears of playing the French striker against Fulham on Saturday
Mateta needed oxygen and 25 stitches to his ear after a horrific kung-fu kick by Millwall keeper Liam Roberts in the last round. Palace’s top scorer missed one Premier League game but has returned to training and played 60 minutes in a friendly after choosing the best mask to protect his ear. It has also been approved by the FA.
And Glasner said: “It’s like a water polo helmet. But with one ear. In water polo it’s so they don’t get water into their ears, he has it just on one side. It sounds crazy but we are used to it.
“I said to the doctor I remember Petr Cech wearing this helmet and he said: ‘Yeah but the ear was free so we need the full helmet’. Once he wore one like you use to ride a motorbike but he couldn’t train with this because it was too heavy, then we found the right one.
“He has trained with us for two weeks with this protection. It’s also important for him to train a little bit with an internal game in the international break so he could play for 60 minutes without any problems so he’s ready.
“I could just see it in water polo. I said to him maybe you should try this because he’s tall enough. It looks a bit strange but he says he feels comfortable so let’s see. When he scores a header tomorrow then it was the right mask and the right protection.”
Former Chelsea keeper Cech wore a protective head covering after suffering a fractured skull in a collision with Reading’s Stephen Hunt in 2006.
Palace defender Chris Richards said Mateta had been the butt of dressing room jokes since his return to action with his “bionic ear”. The American laughed: “Oh, yeah, there's been a few. He looks like a wrestler. He had a headband on, so we were saying the tennis player Francis Tiafoe. So there's been a few shouts the last few weeks.
“In training, he's the exact same. I think he enjoys the attention a bit more now, but he's been the same. Have I thought twice about going into a header with him? Not quite. He's got that bionic ear now, so I guess we'll see how it is tomorrow.”
Mateta has scored 20 goals already this season but Richards added: He's really important to us both on and off the pitch, not just as a player, but also a personality and kind of a guy that connects the locker room as well. He has a few French speakers and his English is good enough to get around. So I guess he's a good person to have around.”
Former Bayern Munich defender Richards wore a protective mask for three weeks when he fractured his nose in Germany. “I felt like Batman so it was pretty cool in that sense,” he recalled. “But psychologically, I was fine with it.” So will he offer Mateta any advice? “No, no,” he said. “He won’t listen to me anyway!”
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