Newcastle-Online.com reader TJ writes in bemoaning the FA Premier League rules that has seen Everton allowed permission to sign goalkeeper Sander Westerveld on loan as emergency cover after suffering a number of injuries and suspensions between the sticks.

Should teams who have players sent off be punished for their transgressions? The obvious answer is yes and football’s current regulations support this view: if a team’s player receives a red card, both he and his club are punished by his subsequent suspension for one or more matches.

So why, then, is the Premier League undermining this system right now? Actually, what it is doing is even more extreme than that - it is actively rewarding a team, Everton, for the suspension of one of their players: Iain Turner.

It goes like this - going into their game against Blackburn last weekend, Everton had two available goalkeepers in their squad: Iain Turner and John Ruddy (Nigel Martyn and Richard Wright both being injured).

Neither Turner nor Ruddy had played in the Premiership before - indeed, Everton had recalled Turner from loan to cover for the loss of Martyn and Wright. So Turner makes his Premiership debut against Blackburn. Eight minutes in, he is sent off for deliberate handball outside his area, denying a goal-scoring opportunity. Ruddy comes on and plays the rest of the match.

According to the rules, Turner is suspended for at least the next domestic game, which is against Newcastle United at St. James’ Park, leaving Everton with only one available keeper, Ruddy. So Everton go cap in hand to the Premier League and argued they have only one available goalkeeper for their game against us, so should be allowed to make an emergency loan signing so they could have a keeper on the field and another on the bench.

The Premier League allows for emergency signings of this kind to prevent a possible situation where a club cannot field a full squad/fill the bench because of injuries/illness, because this solution is preferable to the Premier League than postponing matches. So the Premier League sanctions Everton making the emergency loan signing of Portsmouth’s Sander Westerveld, who is likely to start in goal against Newcastle. So everyone is happy, right?

Well, no - I am seriously unhappy. Everton are down to one keeper because of suspension. What is the point in forcing a player who receives a red card to miss subsequent games if not to punish both the player and his club? By sanctioning Everton bringing in a loan signing outside of the transfer window, the Premier League is undermining this punishment.

Sander Westerveld is an experienced keeper, has won a few caps for The Netherlands and was a regular for Liverpool in the Premiership - Turner, the suspended player who Westerveld has been brought in to cover for, is a teenager with eight minuts of Premiership football under his belt. Ruddy, the only other available goalkeeper Everton have, has 82 minutes of Premiership experience from the same game against Blackburn that Turner was sent off in.

I don’t know enough about Turner or Ruddy to know whether they are better goalkeepers than Westerveld, but I know most teams would rather face an untested kid in goal than a former Holland international.

The Westerveld deal is a joke - far from being punished, Everton are being rewarded for the sending-off of one of their players: instead of having to field a 19-year-old with less than a full game in top-flight football and with no goalkeeping cover on the bench, the Premier League has allowed them to bring in an international goalkeeper who will in all probability start the game. And the team that is put at a disadvantage? Newcastle United.

By TJ