Sean Dyche gets good and bad news on Everton injury front

Everton captain Seamus Coleman had undergone successful surgery on a knee injury but manager Sean Dyche was non-committal on the defender's future at the club.

The 34-year-old's season was ended when he was carried off in the 2-2 draw at Leicester almost a fortnight ago and with the Republic of Ireland international out of contract next month it cast doubts over what would happen in the summer.

"Seamus did have an operation and it has gone well. All being well he should be fit for next season," said Dyche.

"I will be speaking to him ongoing. He is well in the loop where he sits at this football club."

Everton have been rocked by injuries this term with 11 players suffering knocks that required them to miss multiple matches.

Andy Lonergan was a long-term absence with a knee injury and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Yerry Mina, and Ben Godfrey have also missed significant portions of the campaign.

Everton still have their fate in their own hands in their fight for Premier League survival, but sitting just two points above the drop with three matches to play is not a comfortable position.

Dyche was at least relieved to have Calvert-Lewin and Mina back at his disposal.

"Patience, bearing in mind it's not patience in terms of holding them back for the sake of it, it's been patience in the sense of the risk-versus-reward scenarios that come with football," Dyche said.

"It's difficult sometimes. You're very tempted sometimes as a manager to push players back in too early but, in my experience, it doesn't very often pay you back. So we were trying to get players - more so with Dom because of his recent history - to get them to a point when they're as close to match fit as they possibly can be before you drop him back into full training. Whereas, often, you'd use full training to get the final bit of fitness.

"I think because of Dom's history, I thought it needed solving - properly solving. We were unfortunate the first time around because we were just at the cusp of being fully fit and he nicked his hamstring again, then you have to be extra careful. That was the challenge but we still used the same process.

"I think we've seen from his performances that he does look very fit and strong, so that's going to be important over the coming games, of course. It's a real risk-versus-reward scenario, especially with muscle injuries, which I think is always a trickier scenario.

"Yerry has been fit since we got here. It's just [been a case of] giving him proper fitness. I thought he did well the other night fitness-wise. It's not easy at the minute because the games programme is very skinny. We've managed to a couple of games in between since I've been here but not many. He did well with that side of things and then give him a bit of down time to recover."

Everton host Manchester City on Sunday 14 May 2023.

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