Everton finally broke their Goodison Park duck this season by defeating Bournemouth 3-0 last weekend.
Blues manager Sean Dyche now has the opportunity to try to establish some much-needed momentum in the club’s season and break the pattern of failure in the past.
One of the reasons why Everton were finally able to start performing better is because practically all of the present first-team squad players, with the exception of club captain Seamus Coleman, are totally fit.
The Toffees found a winning recipe at the Grand Old Lady, and Dyche had access to all of his offensive options last Saturday.
Senior center-forwards Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Beto, as well as wingers Dwight McNeil, Arnaut Danjuma, and Jack Harrison, were all available.
Young forwards Youssef Chermiti and Lewis Dobbin were also included in the squad. All of this gave Dyche the most leeway in assembling the team he desired.
This is a nice contrast from the recent past, when Dyche and several of his predecessors had to find a way to win so many games despite the absence of key players.
Calvert-Lewin has been the most notable individual absentee, having been out injured from the first weekend of the season until nearly the end of the previous campaign, with only a few brief appearances in between.
His absence most likely contributed to the dismissal of Frank Lampard, and potentially Rafa Benitez before him, given the former England international spent a significant amount of time out injured while the Spaniard was in charge.
And his late comeback to temporary fitness last season (for example, at Brighton) was undoubtedly a role in Dyche’s ability to keep the Blues in the Premier League, although by the skin of their teeth.
it, after assembling a team that clicked, performed, and won at home, Dyche now has a week to plot and plan how he will try to win a derby at Anfield and become only the second Toffees manager in over twenty years to do it.
While I believe it is critical that he maintains a positive and energetic approach, the Everton manager will undoubtedly require his players to return from international duty unhurt.
Fortunately, only a few senior players are away and are expected to play for their respective countries in the coming days.
Even so, Dyche will be hoping that Jordan Pickford, Nathan Patterson (particularly given Coleman’s ongoing absence), Vitalii Mykolenko, and Amadou Onana are all fit to return to Merseyside.
While no team wants injured players to return, any big injury to these players will put the Everton manager’s particularly paper thin squad depth under severe strain in the coming weeks.
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