Yahoo News Everton sweating on return of key players as Sean Dyche gets sick feeling ahead of Leicester City trip
Everton boss Sean Dyche is hoping to be boosted by the return to fitness of several players for Saturday’s crunch trip to Leicester City.
The Toffees are yet to pick up a point in the Premier League this season and went out of the Carabao Cup to Southampton in midweek following a penalty shoot-out.
Dyche was down to the bare bones for that game, a Goodison Park injury crisis compounded by the loss through illness of Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Vitalii Mykolenko and James Garner.
Garner has not yet recovered but Calvert-Lewin and Mykolenko were back in training on Thursday, while Dyche is also hopeful that defenders James Tarkowski and Michael Keane will be passed fit.
Tarkowski missed the cup game with a minor back problem while Keane, who did play in midweek, is set to have a precautionary scan.
“On and off from pre-season, it’s been an awkward run,” said Dyche, who needed a list to remember all his potential absentees.
“Obviously this week we’ve been as stretched as we’ve been, particularly for the cup game the other night. We’re hopeful on a couple of these coming through tomorrow.
“I’ve not experienced this many injured and ill in such a short space of time. It’s just one of those things at the moment. A lot of things seem to be big challenges for us.”
Everton will still be without midfielder Idrissa Gueye, who has suffered a family bereavement, and defender Seamus Coleman, whose ankle injury is worse than first thought.
Key defender Jarrad Branthwaite, meanwhile, is set to feature for the under-21s this weekend following groin surgery during the summer, with Nathan Patterson in the same situation.
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Everton have led by two goals in their last two league matches, against Bournemouth and Aston Villa, only to lose, and patience is already running very thin ahead of a run of fixtures pitting the Toffees against other strugglers.
After Leicester, Everton have matches coming up against Crystal Palace and Ipswich, but Dyche said: “Every part of the Premier League season is critical.
“You don’t design to get off not to a good start. We wanted to get off to a better start but we haven’t so therefore we’ve got to find different ways of operating, find different ways of producing to go and win.
“But we had this start last season, so that’s a bit of a head-scratcher as well. I’m trying to fathom out that side of it but the immediate thing is to correct it as quick as possible.”
Dyche’s decision to substitute striker Beto in midweek and replace him with Ashley Young drew ire from some Everton fans, but the manager shrugged off the external pressure.
“The fans come and go and they decide whatever it is,” he said. “All I can do is work as hard as I can work.
“It’s never something that I’ve overthought. I respect the fans here, I’ve made that absolutely abundantly clear, the way they’ve supported me, the team and the club over many years before my time here.
“The idea of being hero and zero, zero to hero, it comes and goes very quickly. I try to stay steadfast to what’s in front of me.
“This is the industry I’m in, I signed up for it, I’ve been in it all my life. I’m absolutely clear-minded of what it is and now it’s just challenging myself to find a way of changing it.”
