Dominic Calvert-Lewin will continue to be eased to full fitness and won’t start against Fulham next weekend according to Sean Dyche.
The striker, who has endured two frustrating years of successive injuries and abortive comeback attempts, was in the starting line-up for the final pre-season friendly of the summer against Sporting CP yesterday but was withdrawn as planned at half-time after scoring the game’s only goal from the penalty spot.
Calvert-Lewin remains one of Everton’s most important players when fit but he managed to start just 15 Premier League games last season as he battled first a knee injury and then niggling soft-tissue injuries and a shoulder problem at various times later in the campaign.
He returned late in the season to play an important role in away games at Leicester and Brighton but broke down again at Wolves in the penultimate match of the campaign and missed the fixture against Bournemouth on the final day when the Toffees secured their top-flight status thanks to Abdoulaye Doucouré’s sole strike.
Calvert-Lewin has spent the period since then in a further individualised rehabilitation programme that included a visit to a top facility in Germany that specialises in helping players overcome hamstring problems and is now on a managed schedule designed to build him up so that he can be completely ready to play a prolonged part in Everton’s 2023-24 season.
Previous attempts by Rafael Benitez and Frank Lampard to get him back into action sooner than was shown in hindsight to be prudent saw the 26-year-old suffer recurrent injuries that severely curtailed his game time over the past couple of seasons.
“I doubt it,” Dyche said when asked after the Sporting game whether Calvert-Lewin would be in the line-up to face Fulham on Saturday, “because the games programme hasn’t been achieved yet.
“He has played two 45-minute games, so we have to keep building him up because we cannot go down the cycle of events from the last two years. We have to break it.”
Meanwhile, Dele Alli remains some way away from being ready to make his comeback following an unsuccessful loan spell in Turkey, surgery to correct a hip problem in the spring, and a potentially pivotal visit to a mental health facility in America.
The former Tottenham star was considered by many to be another player surplus to requirements at Goodison Park as he entered the final year of his contract but he now has a pathway back to reviving his career once he regains full fitness.
That won’t be any time soon judging by Dyche’s comments yesterday where he acknowledged the progress the player has made in terms of his psychology but cautioned that, physically, he has more road to go.
“We need patience. He is still not over his injury yet,” the manager said. “He is well in himself but he is not over his injury yet. We are miles away from [considering him for the team].
“He is just getting himself right again. He is feeling good and now we will be working with him, on top of that, to make sure the injury is right, but it is still going to be a bit of time yet.”