Match Preview
Amadou Onana is a slight doubt for this weekend’s significant home game against fellow strugglers Burnley.
Having played three successive fixtures away from home, four of the Toffees’ next five are at Goodison Park as Sean Dyche seeks to end what is now the Club’s longest run in the Premier League without a win, surpassing the 12-game losing streak at the start of 1994-95 under Mike Walker.
Onana was withdrawn from the action after an hour of Everton’s 1-1 draw at Newcastle on Tuesday evening, with Dyche explaining in today’s press conference at Finch Farm that the Belgian has picked up “a few knocks”.
That could give the manager an easy decision in central midfield where Idrissa Gueye was mostly effective in his disruptor role against the Magpies and both James Garner and André Gomes came off the bench to put in hugely promising cameos in the last half hour.
Meanwhile, Arnaut Danjuma may need another week before he is match-ready. The Dutchman has been out with ankle ligament damage since late January having made just five Premier League starts during his loan spell from Villarreal.
He has been training with the first team for the past week or so but Dyche said that “he is not quite fit yet”.
Lewis Dobbin, who sustained an ankle injury of his own in training recently, is recovering well but won’t be available this weekend and there is still no word on when or if Dele Alli might be able to make his first contribution to the Everton cause for almost two years.
With this being Everton’s third game in the space of a week, Dyche may well look to rotate some of personnel again, perhaps by recalling Seamus Coleman to the starting XI at the expense of Ben Godfrey and dropping Ashley Young to the bench to allow Jack Harrison the opportunity to re-stake his claim.
The Gaffer has used the 38-year-old Young in back-to-back games before but may opt for Harrison’s energy in the press against a team that likes to play out from the back and can sometimes create problems for themselves in doing so.
For that reason, Abdoulaye Doucouré is a likely starter again despite his struggle for form since returning from a hamstring injury and Dominic Calvert-Lewin is expected to get the nod up front having broken his long goal drought with the equalising penalty at St James’s Park.
In addition to long-term absentees Aaron Ramsey, Nathan Redmond and Luca Kolesoho, Clarets boss Vincent Kompany will be without the injured Jordan Beyer and Ameen Al-Dakhil but Lorenz Assignon is available again after serving a one-match suspension.
Having looked dead and buried not long ago, Burnley have been showing signs of life in recent weeks which will ensure that this will not be an easy game at all, especially given Everton’s iffy record on their own patch.
Kompany’s side are unbeaten in four now having earned creditable draws at West Ham and Chelsea amongst a home win over Brentford and a draw with Wolves at Turf Moor on Tuesday evening.
Those six points have moved them to within as many of the Toffees, a gap that could, of course, be closer should they do the unthinkable and win this weekend and the verdict from the second independent commission (one that will almost certainly come either tomorrow, Friday, or Monday) recommends another points deduction.
Dyche will be impressing on this players the imperative to do everything to prevent the former and to ensure that the point salvaged against Newcastle be used as a spingboard to finally end this tortuous winless sequence that began in the wake of the reverse of this fixture at Turf Moor in December.
Kick-off: 3pm, Saturday 6 April 2024
Referee: Michael Oliver
VAR: David Coote
Last Time: Everton 3 – 1 Burnley
Predicted Line-up: Pickford, Coleman, Tarkowski, Branthwaite, Mykolenko, Gueye, Garner, Harrison, McNeil, Doucouré, Calvert-Lewin