David Moyes revealed that Michael Keane has a ‘chance’ of returning from injury when Everton host Brentford in the Premier League on Sunday.
Keane has been virtually ever-present alongside James Tarkowski at the heart of Everton’s defence this season.
However, the Englishman was absent from Everton’s matchday squad in midweek as Moyes’ side picked up an impressive 2-0 away win against Nottingham Forest.
The fixtures continue to come thick and fast for the Toffees, who host Brentford at the Hill Dickinson Stadium on Sunday, but Moyes said it is not clear at present if Keane will be passed fit to play a part.
The Everton boss, however, did rule out a return for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Charley Alcaraz at the weekend.
‘Michael Keane has got a chance but I would say the others (Dewsbury-Hall and Alcaraz) don’t have a chance no,’ Moyes said in his pre-match press conference on Friday.
There was some positive news on the fitness front, though, with Moyes confirming that Jack Grealish had returned to full fitness after suffering with illness over the festive period.
‘[Grealish] is much better, he looks much better, much fresher in the face and sharper,’ he said of the Manchester City loanee, who came off the bench against Forest having missed the goalless draw with Burnley.
‘He had a really bad illness and it affected him with sickness and all of the other stuff that comes with it.
‘He’s looking a bit better now and is certainly back in training.’
Elsewhere, Jarrad Branthwaite and Seamus Coleman remain sidelined with hamstring injuries, while Iliman Ndiaye and Idrissa Gana Gueye are still unavailable due to their participation in the AFCON.
A positive first half of the season has Everton currently sitting eighth in the table and just five points off Liverpool in fourth.
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And Moyes is hopeful that his side can stick with the chasing pack to set themselves up for an outside shot at European qualifican come the end of the season.
‘I think if you’d said (that) to me when I came in this is how it was going to be, that would be fantastic,’ he added. ‘It shows the club has made progress, we’d stayed up from the position we were in last year, with the move to the new ground.
‘All in all, I think there is a lot of good things we’re beginning to get that feeling back at the club and we want to try and build on it.
‘We’ve got a lot to do. You can lose two games in this league and be near the bottom, you can win two games and you can be talked about in glowing terms.
‘It’s a bit early but I hope that we can keep it going, keeping hanging in it in February, March time and then we can try and see what we can do in the final furlong.’
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