Marco Silva has landed an early weekend boost, as Everton midfielder Fabian Delph may be fit to face Watford on Saturday.
The former Manchester City man suffered a groin injury early in our pre-season fixture away to Werder Bremen following his move out of the Etihad Stadium, ensuring he could not travel to play Crystal Palace at the weekend.
Unfortunately, the Premier League curtain-raiser saw the boss lose two more of his central options in Andre Gomes and Morgan Schneiderlin, as the former was forced off just before the break with an ankle issue, while the latter was later shown a second yellow card.
Jean-Philippe Gbamin came on to serve as Gomes’ replacement as he made his Blues debut, but losing the Portuguese and French midfielders left the boss facing a selection headache with our new Ivorian anchor his only fit out-and-out holding option.
Delph may be in line for his Everton debut, though, as he was spotted in training at Finch Farm on Wednesday with the remainder of the first-team, including fellow summer arrivals Moise Kean and Alex Iwobi.
The image, shared by the club on the official Everton Twitter feed, could mean we line up against Watford with 5 ft 7 Delph and Gbamin deployed as the men tasked with preventing Silva’s summer target Abdoulaye Doucoure and his Hornets teammates from leaving Merseyside with all three points.
3️⃣ days until we’re back at Goodison! ???? #EFC pic.twitter.com/ZzJGjVTfuB
— Everton (@Everton) August 14, 2019
If the boss still has questions over Delph’s readiness to play a full game, he could favour a rare change to a 4-3-3, with Gbamin acting as the sole defensive midfielder in behind the more attacking duo of Tom Davies and Gylfi Sigurdsson.