Sean Dyche will have some big decisions to make when he picks his next Everton starting line-up.
The Blues are next in action against Tottenham Hotspur on Monday night in the Premier League. It will be their first match back after the March international break.
Everton are still battling relegation, and have 10 fixtures left to avoid dropping down into the Championship. Dyche’s side are currently in 15th place and two points above the relegation zone, but have played matches then the teams below them, with the exception of Southampton.
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The two-week hiatus will have given a large portion of the Everton squad a chance to rest up ahead of the season’s run-in. Dyche will hopefully have a near fully-fit squad when his side take on Spurs at Goodison Park on Monday night.
Jordan Pickford, Vitalii Mykolenko, Seamus Coleman, Amadou Onana and Abdoulaye Doucoure will all hopefully return from international duty from their respective countries fit and ready to play. If so, you would fancy all of those to be in contention to start against Spurs.
Of course, there are other defensive players that will hope to be involved. Conor Coady, Yerry Mina, Ben Godfrey, Michael Keane, Mason Holgate and James Tarkowski are all likely to be in the manager’s thoughts when it comes to team selection.
What comes next though is where it gets more interesting. Does Dyche go on the attack and try to get at Tottenham’s defence following the recent departure of Antonio Conte? Or does the Blues boss go with a more defensive-minded set-up with the aim of not getting beat?
Either way, the likes of Alex Iwobi, Idrissa Gueye, Dwight McNeil, Demarai Gray and Tom Davies will all have the hope of being in Dyche’s squad against Tottenham. But what about up front?
Neal Maupay has not been the preferred striker option for Dyche in recent matches. It’s either been Gray up front or Ellis Simms, who has impressed of late especially with his goal against Chelsea.
But the main question will be around Dominic Calvert-Lewin. The striker has not played since featuring in the 1-0 win over Arsenal at the start of February and has been sidelined with a hamstring injury.
Dyche has frequently said that Everton are carefully managing the recovery of Calvert-Lewin, and the international break will only have helped that recovery process with the lack of matches and intense training. It will be the hope that Dyche will have his star striker back available for the clash against Tottenham, but there will be no word on that until his press conference later this week. What happens after the decision on Calvert-Lewin could be crucial as a big few weeks awaits.
Everton dream XI vs Spurs: Pickford; Coleman, Tarkowski, Keane, Mykolenko; Onana, Iwobi, Doucoure; McNeil, Calvert-Lewin, Gray.
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