Everton could be without nine players going into Aston Villa game says Sørensen | OneFootball

Everton manager Brian Sørensen says that he could have the worst squad availability so far this season for the fixture against Aston Villa.

The Blue Girls play host to The Villans at Walton Hall Park on Saturday afternoon. Both sides have had challenging campaigns with injuries across the season taking their toll.

When speaking in the pre-match press conference, Everton boss Sørensen highlighted both clubs’ bad luck on the injury front before revealing that player absences could be at an all-time high this weekend.

“They have good players and they’re a good team,” Sørensen said when commenting on Aston Villa. “At times, they can really put a performance in and play good football.

“They’ve maybe been very similar to us in a way. When they are ready and together, they can be very hard to beat and they put in very good performances.

“It has been bumpy at times but we are in similar positions in the table. We’ve probably had a similar journey this season after last season and we have full respect. We will have to be at our best in terms of getting a result.

“It’s going to be hard to guess the starting line-ups because of injuries. From our side, it is probably the worst it has been this season. We will have potentially nine players out, only two of those are in contention of being ready for tomorrow. We have to put a team out and we will do our very best.”

Despite being short of options throughout the season, Sørensen has seen some players thrive when operating in less familiar roles.

He said “It has brought the group together; that’s how the mechanics are when you have things that are out of your control, it brings people together. That’s been the positive side of the negative.

“Some of them are enjoying it because some of the roles have more freedom than they’re used to having, especially the midfielders playing in wing-back positions because they have more freedom to move.

“With normal wing-backs, we’ve been trying to tell them to go inside the pitch and create situations but when you put Benni [Hanna Bennison] there, Yaya [Aurora Galli] or Kathrine Kühl, they’ll run in with the ball, so that’s been good.”

Everton’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Aston Villa kicks-off at 1pm on Saturday afternoon. Tickets remain on-sale and can be purchased by clicking here.