Everton already knew that its next opponent in the Carabao Cup was going to be a familiar one in a familiar location: Wolves away at Molineux, a stadium the Toffees just played, and won, in a few days ago.
The international break means that teams will wait until the next run of matches, with the Premier League set to restart on September 13 after the World Cup qualifiers during this break. Everton will host a struggling Aston Villa side at Hill Dickinson Stadium that afternoon.
After that, Everton has a run of three matches inside of nine days, although two of them won't require them to leave the city of Liverpool.
The weekend after the Villa match, Everton travel up the road to take on Liverpool at Anfield for the first Merseyside derby of the season, a contest that will no-doubt test the Toffees improved attacking play, not to mention a backline that is off to a bit of a shaky start.
Three days later, comes the Carabao Cup match at Molineux, a fixture that was originally thought to be set for midweek leading up to the derby, but is now slated for the Tuesday after. The saving grace is that the derby kickoff is set for the early afternoon and, as was previously noted, doesn't require much in the way of travel (it's not as close as they used to be, but Hill Dickinson is still just 2.1 miles from Anfield).
That busy run will be capped off with Everton hosting West Ham at Hill Dickinson the following Saturday, albeit another night contest, with kickoff scheduled for 8 PM local time.
Fixture congestion is a normal thing for this part of the season, as most Premier League squads are still part of the League Cup, with the FA Cup still looming, not to mention those clubs who are part of European competitions. So this isn't a "woe is Everton" type of thing, so much as it is an observation of how quickly the Toffees will need to be ready to go once the international break is over.
The good news is that outside of the Liverpool match, early season form would suggest that Everton should expect results in those other three games. The hope is that Jarrad Branthwaite will be ready to return after the break to shore up the back line, and that the attacking group can continue to gel, giving the club plenty of confidence heading into that early test.