Everton has been dealt a blow ahead of Monday’s Merseyside derby at Liverpool, with striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin a major fitness doubt because of a hamstring injury.
Injury-plagued Calvert-Lewin was substituted during Everton’s 1-0 win over Premier League leader Arsenal last weekend, which was Sean Dyche’s first game in charge.
“We’re still monitoring him. It will be touch and go at best I think for the Liverpool game, so we’ll just have to monitor it and hope that it settles down sooner rather than later,” Dyche told reporters on Friday.
“He’s had a couple of niggly injuries which you know, getting on top of them, getting his body to adapt, and all those things for the longer term obviously.”
Calvert-Lewin has made only 11 Premier League appearances this season, scoring once, but Dyche knows how important he could be to Everton’s hopes of avoiding the drop.
“He put a real shift in, his stats were very good in the last game and unfortunately he’s got a niggly hamstring and we’ve got to get on top of it as quick as we can,” he said.
While Everton remains in the bottom three, the appointment of Dyche and the win over Arsenal has lifted the mood at Goodison Park while across the city, Liverpool is in a rut after picking up only one point from the last 12 available.
Liverpool is down in 10th place, but Dyche is not reading too much into that.
“They have been on the up for a long time, and it is difficult to constantly remodel, re-energise, they have done that well, but the way football works it is difficult to constant keep achieving,” he said of Liverpool’s slump.
“I won’t be overthinking their form, they have good players, a very experienced group and the manager certainly is. They are in a tough spell, but it is rare that teams don’t have that at some point. That has to be parked.”
Asked if he had any sympathy for Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, Dyche said: “There’s no sympathy only empathy. He certainly doesn’t need my sympathy.
“My focus is solely on Everton.”
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