By Mike Taylor
Worth sharing?
Sean Dyche says Dominic Calvert-Lewin was withdrawn at half-time of Everton’s defeat to Manchester City due to a tight groin.
The Blues boss says he hopes Calvert-Lewin, who has started each of the past five games, was taken off before any serious damage was done and will now be monitored ahead of the visit to Molineux to face Wolves next weekend.
“Dom got a tight groin and quite obviously I can’t take a risk on that so we had to change that at half-time,” Dyche told evertontv. “Hopefully that will settle down quickly.
“We’re hoping it’s a precaution. He felt his groin but nothing too drastic so I said, ‘Right, that’s it’, because of his record.
“He was touch and go whether he wanted to carry on but I said I had to make a call on that and took it out of his hands, so hopefully that’s going to be effective over the next few days and he’s ready to go again.”
Vitalii Mykolenko, meanwhile, missed the game with a minor thigh strain suffered in training in the build up to the clash with Pep Guardiola’s treble-chasing side.
On the Ukrainian left-back, Dyche said: “We lost our left-back [Mykolenko] the day before the game, which is not perfect.
“We’ll see with Myko. We’ll see how it settles over the coming days.”
Dyche also confirmed the substitutions of Idrissa Gana Gueye and James Garner were both tactical decisions with Everton’s remaining two fixtures of the season also in mind.
“These are players who are working very hard,” added Dyche. “They have been working very hard. We wanted to change the feel of it and also we have to make a decision, when we’re 3-0 down.
“These games are very tough so therefore what can we do to make sure we’re protecting people – their energy but also avoid injuries for the next games.”
