Manager David Moyes has now met with the media ahead of this weekend’s tie against former club Everton.
With German Jan Kirchhoff returning to training, Moyes confirmed that he wouldn’t feature as he’ll be given a bit longer to work on his fitness following injury before he comes back into his thoughts, but his main dilemma for the game was who takes the position between the sticks.
Speaking to the Official Site in his pre game press conference, Moyes confirmed that England international Jordan Pickford was again now available for selection and he simply had to choose whether to use him from the start.
‘I have a choice to make over the goalkeepers because Jordan Pickford is now back in training. I`m very fortunate to have two very good ‘keepers and it`s the sort of decision you want to have. We have to see if Jordan`s ready because he`s been out for a while, but he`s training and he looks fine.’
As for the potential for a Kirchhoff return, Moyes said given his time out with injury, he certainly wouldn’t be rushed back into the side.
‘Jan Kirchhoff has been training this week but he`s not quite ready to play. He needs more training because as we know he`s been out for the best part of eight to ten weeks, so we`ll give him another week in training and see how he is.’
In terms of an overall injury update, he confirmed that Steven Pienaar did have a calf niggle, but otherwise there were no fresh injury concerns from the last fortnight of training.
‘Steven Pienaar has a little bit of problem with his calf, but apart from that we`re okay.’
That doesn’t mean of course there aren’t existing injuries to be dealt with and with Lee Cattermole being hit with a hip problem all season long, Moyes explained that although he didn’t now have an Achilles injury, it is debatable whether he would return to action this year.
“Because Cattermole has been running I think he has got a sore Achilles and he had an injection in it. He is recovering from his hip but he is trying to get over the the period of getting injured and getting back, I don’t think it will be necessarily a quick return.”
Adding.
“I don’t want to say that he won’t play again this season.”
