Surprise inclusions in Everton traveling party to Switzerland

Everton headed out yesterday to Switzerland for a nine-day stay where they’ll continue their preseason training and play two friendly games as well, against Swiss side FC Sion and French club AS Monaco.

The 25-strong party that made the trip contains a good mix of regulars, fringe players and youngsters, as you will read below:

Goalkeepers - Jordan Pickford, Maarten Stekelenburg, Jonas Lossl.

No surprises here, as these three are likely to be the goalies for the season after Under-23s star Joao Virginia was shipped out to Reading on loan.

Defenders - Lucas Digne, Leighton Baines, Seamus Coleman, Michael Keane, Mason Holgate, Lewis Gibson, Matthew Pennington, Ryan Astley.

The first five names pretty much have their names inked in the squad. The highly-touted Gibson traveling with the seniors over U23 captain Morgan Feeney is certainly a surprise. Pennington is surely only marking time with the squad before he is sold or loaned while Astley is in there as fullback cover.

Midfielders - Andre Gomes, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Tom Davies, Bernard, Morgan Schneiderlin, James McCarthy, Beni Baningime, Dennis Adeniran, Nathan Broadhead, Callum Connolly, Joe Williams

No surprises there until McCarthy - the Irishman missed out on the trip to Kenya with a niggle, but is surely on his way out of the club this summer?
Baningime gets another chance at redemption after a fruitless loan spell at Wigan Athletic last season. Adeniran and Broadhead had good outings in Kenya and deserve another shot. Connolly and Williams have been training with the senior squad for some time now, but Williams is the wildcard here - does the Silva favourite go out on loan again?

Forwards - Kevin Mirallas, Theo Walcott, Ademola Lookman, Cenk Tosun, Fraser Hornby, Oumar Niasse

Yes yes, it’s that Mirallas, and he’s still an Everton player. No shockers here though it is good to see Tosun up and about again when it looked like he’d miss a significant part of the preseason with an injury he picked up earlier this summer playing for Turkey.

Any names you don’t see here are players either still on international duty (Idrissa Gueye), or on vacation after international duty (Richarlison, Yerry Mina, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Yannick Bolasie).