BAD NEWS For the Toffees as Everton’s Defense backbone is DOWN with a supposedly severe injury suffered in the Friendly with Roma and will likely be sidelined for a long period of time EXCEPT…

Everton manager Sean Dyche is hopeful the injury sustained by Seamus Coleman during Saturday’s friendly with Roma isn’t ‘too serious’. 

The Toffees overturned a first-half Lorenzo Pellegrini goal to draw 1-1 thanks to a Dominic Calvert-Lewin strike in their last-ever pre-season friendly at Goodison Park on Saturday afternoon.

“The first half was a little bit slow, as you’d expect. It can be like that at times in pre-season.  The second half, I thought, was good,” Dyche told evertontv of his side’s performance.

“A lot of the habits were on show. [It was] a soft goal from our standards, but other than that, I thought it was a decent performance and there were good signs from players who are new to the Club, as well.”

However, one negative was club captain Coleman limping out after just 32 minutes after sustaining a knock.

Coleman has spent 15 years at Goodison Park and has made over 400 appearances for Everton to date, long since establishing himself as an extremely popular and influential figure.

Losing his leadership on the eve of the 2024/25 Premier League season would be a blow to Everton, but Dyche is hopeful the 72-time Republic of Ireland international’s injury is nothing to worry about.

“Unfortunately, it looks like he’s nicked his calf,” said Dyche. “We’re not sure at the moment how serious that is, but I don’t think it’s too serious – the way he came off – but we’ll just have to hope for the best.”

Everton open their 2024/25 campaign at home to Brighton on Saturday.