James McCarthy sidelined another three weeks

Manager Ronald Koeman has announced that James McCarthy will remain sidelined after the international break for the rest of September due to his groin injury. This news comes after much discussion of his future and rumors of transfer request being handed in by the player.

The injury held McCarthy out of the Stoke City game before the break and was responsible for him being returned early from the Republic of Ireland squad who played Serbia in their World Cup qualifying match. Hopefully this break along with injury recovery will help McCarthy and the team move on from everything that happened during the summer transfer window.

It’s still unclear how Koeman plans to deploy McCarthy along with Gareth Barry and Idrissa Gana Gueye in the defensive midfield, but with Barry’s age it’s easy to see him using McCarthy to spell him.

I’m still curious to see if McCarthy can recover from even light surgery in less than a month. Considering a groin strain could keep him out this long, so if it required surgery can he really recover that quickly? If McCarthy is out longer than three weeks then Everton are lacking in defensive midfielder depth with both him and Muhamed Besic injured. With several failed deals at the deadline and thee injuries it appears players like Tom Davies could see extensive time in September at the very least.