Everton are ‘confident’ that James Rodriguez will be fit to face Southampton.
Rodriguez had been expected to miss the Premier League leaders’ trip to the South Coast this weekend after suffering an injury in the Merseyside derby.
The Colombia international picked up the knock during an early collision with Virgil van Dijk, who was later withdrawn during the 2-2 draw with Liverpool.
However the Blues remain hopeful that Rodriguez can feature at St Mary’s after resuming light training on Friday in the build-up to the fixture.
“He’s not definitely out,” confirmed Carlo Ancelotti.
“Fortunately his recovery was really good and he trained today, just a partial training session.
“I hope that he will train tomorrow and we will see if he is in condition to play on Sunday. It’s really better now and we have confidence that maybe he can play.
“He had a big hematoma and wasn’t able to train until today. So I hope tomorrow it will be better.
“Today was quite good, the training, but he had only partial training today. The possibility that he plays depends on training tomorrow.
“If he’s comfortable in training then he’s going to play, because it’s not a muscular problem. If the hematoma goes down, he can play.”