Silva unsure of Gomes return from injury

Everton host defending Premier League champions Manchester City tomorrow with the new season already plunged into turmoil following two consecutive defeats to AFC Bournemouth and Sheffield United.

The Blues find themselves sitting in the wrong half of the table after six games when not so long ago they had the chance to go top of the league. Manager Marco Silva addressed the media today in his customary press conference ahead of tomorrow’s feature game.

In his team news update, Silva started by saying there was no improvements and addressed rumours that the Portuguese midfielder would be out until mid-October.

“JP Gbamin and Andre Gomes are still out. Andre is still not fully working with his teammates, let’s hope in the next few days there will be more news about him.

“It’s possible this news is coming because we have the international break after this week.

“Like I said before, he’s doing some first steps to integrate in full sessions with the team, hasn’t done it yet, but next week let’s see how he reacts.”

Djibril Sidibe had a good game at rightback midweek picking up the assist on Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s opener, will he be dethroning club captain Seamus Coleman any time soon?

“This is why we signed him, we knew he would bring competition to the side.

“Unfortunately for us he didn’t do our preseason, didn’t have any time to integrate in any friendly matches with us. These are good opportunities for him to play and get some minutes in his legs and he did well.

“Pushing Coleman will be a good fight between both I am 100% sure. Of course I believe the more he plays the more he will integrate and know better all the things in the Premier League, this is a new competition for him.

“He did well the last game, but I will demand more. To be honest even if he had good moments I will insist on more, just like I am demanding from the others.”

The defence, which was a bulwark to end last season, has been proving to be quite leaky early on, especially from setpieces, an area that the Blues had to address early last season too.

“No one is happy when we conceded goals like we have in the last few games.

“Of course we’ve changed one thing compared to last season, but otherwise they are the same as last season. Ten clean sheets in thirteen games, and fourth best defence from last season

“We’ve been learning from mistakes we’ve made, and now we’re starting again. The goals we’ve conceded have been sloppy and are working to improve the same.”