Sean Dyche insists Everton are ‘being careful’ with Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s road to recovery.
Calvert-Lewin has featured just once since Dyche succeeded Frank Lampard, in last month’s win over Arsenal, as a result of a persistent hamstring injury.
The England international missed training at the Blues’ Finch Farm base on Thursday, barely 48 hours before their Premier League trip to Chelsea.
But Dyche explained that Calvert-Lewin’s absence was out of precaution and had already not counted on him being available for the Stamford Bridge clash.
“We’re still monitoring the situation. We’re being careful, he’s being careful with his body to try and give him every opportunity,” said the Everton manager.
“It wasn’t overly in my thinking for the Chelsea game, regardless of anything else, because the international break comes and you can hopefully use that even more wisely.
“So we’re just monitoring his body.”
He added: “He’s just felt something that we’ve had to be careful with, that’s all, and he’s had to be careful with.
“We’re trying to get him to [be] as strong as he was two years ago, and get him back to that statistical level, as well as what we see and how he feels.
“We’ll see, there’s nothing other than me just wanting to get him out there training every day and feel good about that. That’s the best start point, and we’ll take it from there.”