Everton injury update: Robin Olsen out against Manchester City as Gbamin approximate return date set

Everton faces Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City as the Premier League leaders continue their multidimensional pursuit of trophies with the FA Cup certainly on their wish list. While Everton remains in the fight for European spots in the league, the attention shifts to the FA Cup quarter finals.

The Toffees had an entertaining and drama filled goal fest against Tottenham Hotspur, winning 5-4 after extra time to advance to the quarter finals. The desire to go deep in the FA Cup remains high but pulling off a win against Man City will be a huge challenge.

Unfortunately, Everton have faced injury setbacks restricting them from going with a full strength team against the Premier League leaders. Abdoulaye Doucoure is already ruled out for eight to ten weeks with a small fracture on his foot. Jordan Pickford had been ruled out after hurting his oblique abdominal muscle in the 2-1 home loss against Burnley.

Ahead of the FA Cup tie, Carlo Ancelotti has given a complete injury update with six first team players unavailable against Man City.

"We have out the two goalkeepers, Olsen & Pickford. Gbamin is also out but he will start training next week. James, Doucoure & Delph also out. (via Everton press conference)"

Joao Virginia will start as Robin Olsen is ruled out

The unavailability of Robin Olsen will be a blow as the Toffees will be without two senior keepers in the tie. Ancelotti is confident that despite being inexperienced, Joao Virginia has the quality and can do a good job.

"I’m not worried because Joao is a young goalkeeper, without experience for this kind of game but a lot of quality. Where I am worried now is the team has to play like we tried to put in place the right strategy for the game. (via Phil Kirkbride of Liverpool ECHO)"

What will come as a wave of good news for the fans is that Jean-Philippe Gbamin has started individual training and Ancelotti has now provided an approximate return date. The Italian manager is hopeful that Gbamin can return to training post the international break. Meanwhile, James Rodriguez will also return post the international fixtures.

Gbamin has endured one of the worst injury phases of a footballer’s career, being sidelined for over 18 months, missing 77 games for the Toffees since joining them from Mainz 05 in the summer of 2019 for £25 million. Everton are taking no risk with the Ivorian’s fitness and want him to fully recover before integrating him back into the team and training.

Everton are not expecting an easy game against Manchester City and with the long list of absentees, the task just got tougher but Ancelotti is confident that Manchester City will have a tough game.