Everton defender could be back by the weekend

Despite having to be hospitalized over the weekend, Everton defender Michael Keane could be back for coming Sunday’s crucial game against Watford. Keane suffered a deep cut on his foot in the Blues’ Carabao Cup game against Sunderland over a month ago, missing the next two games against AFC Bournemouth and Apollon Limassol respectively.

He was expected to play yesterday at Leicester City, but in his post-match comments yesterday interim manager David Unsworth said that the England international had been hospitalized after the wound got infected and travelled up his leg. Keane has struggled in the Blues last few games, and looks to have been playing through the pain barrier.

"Michael got a knock; a really bad gash against Sunderland, and it got infected and spread up his leg.

"It's been really, really nasty and he's been hospitalised. We got some good news when we got to the ground that there's been a big improvement, so hopefully he can be available for Sunday's game."

Keane has looked out of sorts the last few weeks and uncharacteristically poor with clearances, and this could be attributed to his injury. However, in all fairness, Everton’s defending as a whole has been shambolic so it would be hard to tell if anyone is playing through the pain barrier or just being terrible in general.

Unsworth also confirmed the news that we’d all heard about late last week - James McCarthy has re-injured his hamstring and faces more time on the sidelines.

"Unfortunately, after the Chelsea game, he got a little tweak.

"We had it scanned on Friday and there's a little strain in there. So that's going to be a couple of weeks, which is disappointing because he's a big player for us."

It’s interesting that Rhino says it should only be a couple of weeks, because reports seemed to say “months, not weeks”, which would be disastrous for the injury-plagued player.