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In news coming from the Liverpool Echo it appears that Everton will have no interest in selling Kevin Mirallas this January even though he has seen little playing time this season.
According to Roberto Martinez that lack of playing time has been due mainly to injuries earlier and the red card suspension more recently at Swansea.
His start against Newcastle was a shining example of how he expects more playing time for the Belgian midfielder. If that's the case then perhaps this may spell an end for Steven Naismith as Martinez admitted this squad was built for European competition and may be too deep for this amount of competition.
Another possibility is seeing a lot more of Arouna Kone on the bench in the first-team. Since his hat-trick against Sunderland Kone's impact has been minimal and really has not connected with Leighton Baines on the left side since his return from injury.
I would hate to see Everton sell Mirallas at such a low point for him so even if this is a tactic to drive up the price I'm for it.
On the other hand the team is better offensively with Mirallas on the left wing than with Kone out there. Neither option though solves the issues we've seen on the defensive side.
Speaking at his press conference ahead Wednesday's Capital One Cup first leg semi-final against Man City, Martinez said:
"We are not open to offers. Not at all. What we have seen with Kevin is that he signed a new contract in the summer and had a strong pre-season.
"We are in football to make decisions and we have really good attacking options.
"Kevin was unfortunate. He started the first game against Watford but then got a little niggle, a little injury. He then got the three game suspension (for a red card at Swansea).
"But the way he has been working the last few weeks earned him a start against Newcastle and I thought he did really well. I expect him to have a major influence in the second half of the season.
"If you take into consideration we have really good attacking players in our team and really good options going forward, there is still the opportunity for every player is to use good moments of form to help the team and Kevin is a big part of that as he showed against Newcastle."