Everton could be without their first-choice central midfield for Tuesday’s Capital One Cup quarter-final at Middlesbrough, with James McCarthy and Gareth Barry injured in the Premier League draw against Bournemouth.
McCarthy was substituted in the second half of Saturday’s costly 3-3 draw with Eddie Howe’s team and Barry played on with a shin problem that has not alleviated. The influential pair are major doubts for the game at The Riverside and Tom Cleverley and Darron Gibson, who have only recently returned from injuries, could deputise.
The Everton manager Roberto Martínez confirmed: “We will have an idea on James’ injury later. He over-extended his upper hip muscle and was quite sore yesterday. We will find out more today. It is the same with Gareth Barry, who had a really nasty knock on the shin, stud marks, and found it hard to walk yesterday. We will assess them both before naming the squad. We have good numbers and the options are there so we will see.”
The second-choice goalkeeper Joel Robles will replace Tim Howard against Middlesbrough, as has been the case throughout the competition and following criticism of Howard’s role in Bournemouth’s 98th-minute equaliser.
“Joel was man of the match in the previous round against Norwich and will start tomorrow,” said Martínez. “Tim has been very consistent and performing with a real influence since he came back. The third goal at Bournemouth was a real disappointment but as a team we should have done a lot better. The ball should never have got into that position and there are question marks about your marking when a player has a free header like that on the edge of your six yard box.”
Everton have never won the League Cup in its various guises and last reached the semi-final stage in 2008.
Martínez said: “We’re not looking at it in terms of winning a trophy, just winning a quarter-final. Whatever momentum you have, you need to develop a winning mentality. We have not been in that situation for a long time.
“We’ve not had many League Cup quarter finals in the last few years – just two in last 30 years – but we want to carry on with the good feelings we’ve developed in this competition.”
