(Reuters) - Everton will prioritise Sunday's Merseyside derby against Liverpool over their final Europa League game and will field a second-string weakened team against Apollon Limassol on Thursday, the Premier League club's manager Sam Allardyce has said.
Everton, who are bottom of their Europa League group and cannot progress to the knockout stages, currently have several players out of action through injury and Allardyce was not willing to gamble on more players being sidelined.
"It is a dead rubber," Allardyce told British media.
"I would suggest to the fans that if you are going to spend some money to go and watch them be mindful that I am going to send a team that is not going to be risking too many players who are going to be involved for Liverpool.
"It would be foolish of me to consider getting a player injured in that game and not have him available. I have too many injuries already."
Everton have climbed to 10th in the league after winning their last two games and will be hoping to beat fourth-placed Liverpool for the first time since 2010.
(Reporting by Aditi Prakash in Bengaluru; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
