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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Sport
Chris Beesley

Everton manager Marco Silva offers Yerry Mina injury update and stern rebuke to Euro sceptics

Everton manager Marco Silva has revealed that both Yerry Mina and Theo Walcott are both fit to face Burnley as he declared that the Blues should always aspire to be in European competition.

Mina hasn't played for the club for six weeks since the 2-0 home win over Chelsea on March 17 after picking up a hamstring injury in Colombia's 2-1 friendly defeat in South Korea on March 26.

Walcott was a doubt for last weekend's trip to Crystal Palace with sickness but was part of the squad for the goalless draw, coming on as an 86 minute substitute for Gylfi Sigurdsson .

Silva said: “They're ok, they are working with the team.

“They are fit and depending on my decisions, are available for the match.”

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Burnley, Everton's final visitors of the campaign to Goodison Park, secured a place in this season's Europa League by securing seventh spot ahead of the Blues in eighth a year ago.

However, they have never really recovered from the early start that their continental commitments required from them and have only just got themselves out of relegation danger.

With two matches left, ninth-placed Everton's European aspirations remain out of their hands as they remain four points adrift of seventh-placed Wolverhampton Wanderers but Silva insists that the Blues should avoid the mentality of considering European football a hindrance.

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He said: “We have to keep doing our job, fighting to achieve the points, and after we will see the position of the table.

“It's not something that is just in our hands. But the European competitions, for us as a club it has to be our aim.

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“Let's see what we can do this season or not but for the next one and all the others coming it has to be our aim, 100%, we have to play every single season in European competitions for us to keep growing as a club as putting our players at that level is our aim as a football club.

“It has to always be a pleasure, it has to always be a fantastic challenge for us and not a problem.

“You have to prove on the pitch you are able to do that. If it happens we have to prepare ourselves and the squad and have a deep squad to prepare to play in both competitions but it will always be a big challenge, never a problem for us.”

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