Match Preview
Everton travel to Villa Park this Sunday for their first away game of the season looking to not only pick up their first points of the new season but also improve on what was a horrendous record on the road during 2022-23.
The Blues won just two games away from Goodison Park last season which compounded a record-equalling 10 home defeats to keep the club in danger of relegation right the way to the final game of the campaign.
Manager Sean Dyche wasn’t able to start his first full season in charge with a victory as his charges went down 1-0 to Fulham last Saturday but he will be bolstered this weekend by the return of Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
The striker has endured two years of stop-start availability since first suffering a serious quad injury in August 2021 and then a knee injury on the eve of last season, with frustrating hamstring problems keeping him from ever putting a consistent run of games together.
However, with Dyche having made a commitment to try and get to the bottom of his soft-tissue niggles and ensure that he is 100% ready to return to action rather than rush him back, Calvert-Lewin has undergone a summer of patient fitness and rehab work that he and the club’s medical staff hope will enable him to finally return for a sustained spell.
Whether he starts against Villa remains to be seen but, having played 45 minutes in each of the friendlies against Sporting CP and AC Monza and then coming through a 90-minute practice match at Manchester United’s Carrington training complex on Tuesday, he is in the frame for Everton’s second fixture of 2023-24.
“He is in good shape,” Dyche said in his pre-match press conference today. “He managed to get the sort of end part of his rehab with 90 minutes [this week] and he certainly comes straight back into the thinking.”
The last time Calvert-Lewin was consistently available across a season was in 2020-21 under Carlo Ancelotti when he scored 21 goals in all competitions, broke into the England setup and made the squad for the delayed 2020 European Championships. Since then he has managed 15 Premier League starts in successive seasons and scored seven times.
As he showed in most of the games where he was available last term, and particularly in Everton’s stunning 5-1 win at Brighton in May, he provides a hugely important different dimension to the attack when he is in the side and the hope is that he can play a vital role in improving the Toffees’ away form.
They take on a Villa side that looked hugely impressive last season after Unai Emery took over from Steven Gerrard and the Midlanders have continued to recruit well, adding the likes of Pau Torres, Moussa Diaby and Youri Tielemans over the summer.
Torres is likely to make his full debut this weekend after Tyrone Mings suffered a serious knee injury at St James’s Park last Saturday as the Villans took a hiding from Newcastle. Emery’s men went down 5-1 to the rampant Magpies and Dyche will no doubt be hoping his men can play on any psychological weakness that might exist in the minds of his opponents on Sunday.
Neither of the players who got the goals in Villa’s 2-1 win in this fixture at the same stage of last season will be involved this time — Danny Ings was sold to West Ham in January and Emiliano Buendia is out injured — but in players like Olly Watkins and Leon Bailey they have threats who have caused Everton plenty of problems before.
While Dyche could replace Neal Maupay with Calvert-Lewin, the manager is otherwise expected to go with the same side that lined up against Fulham, unless he feels that Arnaut Danjuma is ready to play his part from the start.
The Dutchman picked up a knock in pre-season, missed the game against Sporting and only came on as a sub against Fulham but he, too, logged important minutes earlier in the week in the match against Man Utd and could be seen as a more dangerous option on the flanks than James Garner who played out of position in right midfield last weekend.
Dwight McNeil is back in light training as he recovers from ankle ligament damage that looks likely to keep him out until at least the international break.
“He’s going alright,” the manager replied. “I spoke to him today. [He’s] just on at the light stuff now, but getting back, not quite back on the grass, but in the running and really building a true strength to his ankle.”
On the topic of Jean-Philippe Gbamin, who has not returned to Finch Farm following his loan spell at Trabsonspor last season and is said to be in Paris recovering from his latest injury, Dyche was unable to provide any updates but the belief is that Everton will listen to offers for a player whose agent suggests won’t play for the club again with his contract up at the end of the season.
“He is not back with us at the moment,” Dyche explained. “We are monitoring the situation.”
When asked if the Ivorian midfielder will be allowed to leave, Dyche said: “We need an offer to come in first.”
Kick-off: 2 pm, Sunday 20 August 2023
Referee: Anthony Taylor
VAR: Darren England
Last Time: Aston Villa 2 – 1 Everton
Predicted Line-up: Pickford, Patterson, Keane, Tarkowski, Young, Gueye, Onana, Iwobi, Danjuma, Doucouré, Calvert-Lewin