International injuries will put Everton manager Dyche’s thin squad under strain

Last weekend Everton finally broke their Goodison Park duck this season and secured a first home win beating Bournemouth 3-0.

Now, Blues boss Sean Dyche has a chance to try and build some much-needed momentum in the club’s season and break the pattern of failure in the past.

One of the reasons why Everton were finally able to start performing better is the fact that almost all the current first-team squad players are fully fit, except for club captain Seamus Coleman.

The Toffees found a winning formula at the Grand Old Lady and critically Dyche had all his attacking talent available to choose from last Saturday.

In particular, both senior centre-forwards Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Beto were fit, along with wingers Dwight McNeil, Arnaut Danjuma and Jack Harrison.

In addition, young forwards Youssef Chermiti and Lewis Dobbin were also in the squad. All this gave Dyche the most scope to select the team he wanted.

This situation is a welcome change from the recent past when Dyche and several of his predecessors had to find a way to win so many games with key players missing.

The most significant individual absentee has been Calvert-Lewin, who was out injured from the opening weekend until almost the end of the last campaign, bar a few occasional appearances.

His absence probably contributed to costing Frank Lampard his job and possibly also Rafa Benitez before him too, as the former England international spent a large time out hurt when the Spaniard was in charge.

And, his late return to temporary fitness last season (for example at Brighton) was certainly a factor to enabling Dyche to keep the Blues up, albeit by the skin of their teeth.

So now, after putting together a side that clicked, performed and brought victory at home, Dyche has a week to plot and plan how he is going to try and win a derby at Anfield and become only the second Toffees boss in over twenty years to win at the old enemies turf.

While I think it is important he remains committed to a positive and energetic approach, the Everton  manager will certainly need his players away on international duty to return unscathed.

Fortunately, there are only a few senior players who are away and likely to feature for their countries over the coming few days.

But even so, Dyche will be keeping his fingers crossed that Jordan Pickford, Nathan Patterson (especially given Coleman’s continued absence), Vitalii Mykolenko and Amadou Onana are all still healthy when they return to Merseyside.

While all clubs are obviously keen not to have injured players return, any significant injuries to these players will put the Everton manager’s particularly paper thin squad depth under severe strain over the coming weeks of the season.