'Sean Dyche is never going to complain about injuries, he's just honest' says Everton defender

Everton’s Ashley Young has credited Sean Dyche’s character after a difficult run at the start of the season.

The Toffees have endured a tough run at the beginning of the new Premier League campaign, winning just once as they sit in 16th place after seven games. Injuries have no doubt played their part with key figure Jarrad Branthwaite playing just one game so far.

As confirmed yesterday, Dyche is also missing a handful of players including key starter James Garner who is out with a back issue, while talented summer signing Tim Iroegbunam is out for a few weeks. On top of that, Branthwaite is a doubt for the weekend’s game while both Seamus Coleman and Nathan Patterson are short of fitness. They are also missing the young striking duo of Armando Broja and Youssef Chermiti as well. Young may feature at right-back again with Coleman and Patterson short of match fitness, with Vitalyi Mykolenko set to return to the starting line-up after a few weeks out.

Speaking live via talkSPORT on Thursday, Young backed the manager who has continued to be resilient despite the ongoing struggles: “With the manager, he’s just honest, true, and is never going to complain about bad injuries. We’ve had big injuries to Seamus [Coleman] and Jarrad [Branthwaite], Patterson coming back, Armando Broja as well. You can add Youssef [Chermiti] to that as well.”

They will hope to make the most of this upcoming run of games before the next international break with the likes of Fulham (H) Southampton (A) and West Ham (A) following Ipswich. After that, they welcome Brentford and Wolves to Goodison Park and also travel to Manchester United in a three-game spell but they face a horrible run after in December.

It includes home games against Liverpool - the final Merseyside Derby at Goodison Park - and Chelsea before heading to face title challengers Arsenal and Manchester City away on Boxing Day. They’ll need their star performers to step up when it really matters to get anything from that run.

Kieran McKenna’s side snatched a few targets away from Everton in the summer, such as Jacob Greaves, Kalvin Phillips, Jean Cajuste and even Sammy Szmodics was linked with them previously. With no wins so far, Everton will fancy their odds of coming away from Portman Road with a positive result but they know it will be a hugely competitive game that could go either way.