Everton are hopeful Yerry Mina will be back in October after the centre-back suffered ankle ligament damage in the first game of the season.
Mina pulled up in the second half against Chelsea - a match in which one of his other fellow starting centre backs, Ben Godfrey, was stretchered off. Godfrey is expected to be out for around three months with a fractured fibula.
The prognosis is more optimistic for Mina, whose injury is expected to take eight weeks to recover from. Until then, Frank Lampard believes Everton can cover the absences of two centre backs following the arrival of Conor Coady.
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Speaking after the defeat to Aston Villa - in which midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure was the latest Everton player to pick up an injury - Lampard made reference to the loan deal that brought Coady to the club after the season opener with Chelsea. Asked whether he believed he had enough cover for the loss of Mina and Godfrey, he said: "I think so, see how it goes in the next couple of weeks. We have different cover in there now with Conor coming in."
Injuries to centre backs blighted Everton's efforts to avoid relegation last season. Both Godfrey and Mina missed key games towards the end of the campaign, while Seamus Coleman played through a hernia issue to lead the side to safety. Coleman had surgery on that over the summer and played for the Under-21s earlier in the month in his bid to return to fitness. He was on the bench against Aston Villa on Saturday.
Lampard's ambition to make his squad more robust over the summer began with the arrival of James Tarkowski. The centre back has played at least 30 games in each of the previous five Premier League campaigns. Last week, Coady was signed on loan from Wolverhampton Wanderers. He also has an exemplary fitness record. Mason Holgate started as the third centre back at Villa and Everton also have Michael Keane and academy starlet Reece Welch to call upon. Jarrad Branthwaite is on loan at PSV Eindhoven.
On Coady's debut for the Blues, Lampard said: I saw everything I expected - leadership in the dressing room and on the pitch. He is going to find his way because he has only been here three or four days but I saw that. James Tarkowski has been a real positive for us since he came into the club. I think that will improve quickly. It was the first time that three has played together. They are good personalities and that will really help us."
Before the Villa game, Lampard said Godfrey was in a positive place after successful surgery on his fibula. He was back at Finch Farm, where he will undergo his rehabilitation, at the end of the last week.
Lampard said: "Obviously he was really disappointed straight after. He was in a good place, he was fit, he had had a good pre-season after a few injuries last year. This was a freak injury and it is really hard, that one, to tell him to be positive, because I know the position he is in.
"But the reality is if it is three months or so it falls in a season where we have a winter break, which is a six week break in effect in and around hopefully when Ben will be coming back, so it might give him a nice little buffer of working on his fitness at that point... He will get there and he will be back in and around it, that is our message to him. He is in a decent place considering the injury."
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