Rafa Benitez believes he has been placed in an impossible situation if Everton’s Premier League game at Burnley goes ahead on Boxing Day.
As things stand, Benitez has 11 players unavailable for the trip to Turf Moor with six of his squad injured and a further five having tested positive for coronavirus since last week’s 1-1 draw at Chelsea.
Although Everton’s squad has been decimated – the Blues boss confirmed two unnamed members of his staff also have Covid – they currently don’t have enough cases for their match to be called off.
Asked if he had been placed in an impossible situation, Benitez replied: “I think you are right, I was explaining when we were losing games in a row how good we were in the beginning because we had everyone available.
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“After I was trying to explain that everyone is available and still people were not caring too much.
“Anyway, the analysis has to be what it has to be. You are a professional you know why we are in this situation.
“We have a squad which has a limited number of players, players who in the past were injured all the time, so we are trying to manage.
“Hopefully in the future it will be easier but at the moment we have to manage with what we have.”
Benitez – who got his booster vaccination on Tuesday – was not willing to reveal which of his players have tested positive but admitted he was frustrated by the situation given the stringent protocols that Everton have followed.
He said: “You have to respect the confidentiality but we have five of them and some members of staff.
“It is not an ideal situation and I will repeat again we have three dressing rooms, masks, lateral flows, PCRs, we keep distances and try and manage in the restaurants but you cannot stop the players being together on the day of a game or when you travel so this is the reason why we have some issues now.
“I am really disappointed that we have this situation because we are trying to do all we can.”
Benitez, whose managerial career stretches back to 1993, admits that the pandemic is providing him with a new type of challenge.
Pick the Everton team to face Burnley:
He said: “To be fair I have to think about all my years and see if we have issues like that.
“In terms of injuries and covid, obviously it’s the first time we’ve had a situation like that.
“With other problems there have been different teams with different issues.
“You have to adapt. The good thing about that is that you have experience, you try to stay calm and find a solution. We did it against Chelsea and we have to play this game so hopefully we can do it against Burnley.
“To be sure that everybody understands the context, because it’s a little bit of what I say a surprise that we will play this game but anyway we will try to do our best.”
The 61-year-old added: “Today we were working on the game plan. We do not have too many players available to be fair but we have to manage some ideas and tomorrow we will do the same.
“I’m trying to stay focused and make sure that the players understand what we want to do and how we want to do it. It’s up to them when you go on the pitch and if not you have to try and help them in a way that you can.
“We have a couple of days to consider what is going on and after we have to stay really focused on the game.
“The fans will like to see the best players on the pitch every game.
“So when you have these kind of situations, I don’t know if it’s the best solution but okay, we have to deal with that.”
