There is an air of positivity around Goodison Park as Everton head into their first home game of the Premier League season against West Bromwich Albion this Saturday.
The Blues have made an almost perfect start to this campaign with two solid victories, two clean sheets and an incredible 21 different players used within the first week of the season. A refreshingly energetic and committed performance against Tottenham Hotspur last weekend was followed up by a fairly routine victory over League Two side Salford City in the second round of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday.
The back-to-back victories will have pleased Carlo Ancelotti, especially with the number of players used across those two wins which suggest that Everton has improved greatly on their overall squad depth since last season.
However, it’s unlikely that any of the players that came in for the midweek game will be threatening for a start this weekend and is safe to assume that most will be saved for next Wednesday’s game against Fleetwood Town in the next round of the Carabao Cup.
Carlo Ancelotti has already confirmed that Seamus Coleman will be starting against West Brom at the weekend, which will be the club captain’s 250th Premier League start for the club, and the Irishman is expected to be joined by the same starting eleven that earned the Toffees an opening day victory at Spurs last Sunday.
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Coming into the game against West Brom, the only new casualty on the injury front is Jarrad Branthwaite, who limped off during the first half of the game against Salford City and is expected to miss around a month of action due to the ankle ligament damage he suffered during the midweek game.
Branthwaite joins Mason Holgate, Fabian Delph and Jean-Phillipe Gbamin on the injury list, but there are no other fresh injury concerns for Carlo Ancelotti to manage as he prepares for this weekend’s fixture.
With the majority of his first team squad available to him, Ancelotti will be confident that his Everton side can maintain their 100% record to the season so far with a victory over newly-promoted West Brom.
The Toffees faithful will also be expecting a win this weekend which would continue this run of forward momentum for the Blues and allow the fans to feel optimistic for the season ahead.