Everton manager Sean Dyche has revealed that Nathan Patterson is still not training alongside his team-mates while admitting that contracts for players whose current deals are up in the summer like captain Seamus Coleman have not yet been discussed.
Patterson has been sidelined since picking up a menial ligament injury in Everton’s 4-1 home defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion on January 3. The prognosis at the time was a six-week lay-off for the 21-year-old, who also missed most of October with an ankle injury picked up playing for Scotland, while he also underwent surgery on his ankle last April.
Everton put out pictures this week of Patterson back training at Finch Farm, both sprinting and doing on the ball work, but Dyche explained that the player had not yet joined his team-mates.
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The Blues boss said: “He is not on the grass with us yet. Keano (Michael Keane) and the rest are back with us, it is just with him it is a bit more long term. He is on the grass, but he is not with us in the first team yet.”
Meanwhile, Patterson’s fellow right-back Coleman is one of a clutch of players whose current contracts expire this summer that the new manager has not yet got round to sorting. Predecessor Frank Lampard claimed ahead of Everton’s Boxing Day fixture at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers that agreements on new deals for Anthony Gordon, who has subsequently been sold to Newcastle United for £45m, plus Jordan Pickford and Alex Iwobi (whose current contracts both expire in 2024) were all “very close” but there still haven’t been any announcements.
When it comes to players who are potentially out of contract this summer, skipper Coleman is joined by midfielders Abdoulaye Doucoure and Tom Davies; centre-back Yerry Mina; winger Andros Townsend plus understudy goalkeepers Asmir Begovic and Andy Lonergan. Less than a fortnight into his new role and having to prioritise familiarising the group with his methods, though, Dyche concedes that talks over new deals remain on the backburner, even for club stalwarts like Coleman who has been at Goodison Park since January 2009.
When asked about the prospect of a new contract for the 34-year-old, the Everton manager laughed and replied: “Contracts are not for now. You can ask me a million questions about everything outside that.”
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