Rafa Benitez says the injury history of a number of Everton players means he cannot afford to rush their return to the team - despite a growing list of absentees.
The Blues will welcome back Richarlison for today's game with Watford but be without Adboulaye Doucoure, Yerry Mina and Dominic Calvert-Lewin while Benitez has confirmed the game will be too soon for Andre Gomes and Fabian Delph.
Benitez says that Jean-Philippe Gbamin and Cenk Tosun, who have both endured two years of injury problems, are "training" but hinted that neither were in his plans to feature against Watford.
"Delph has a problem with his shoulder, Gbamin is training, Tosun is training," he said.
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"So we are happy with players coming back but, as I said before, we have so many and they had some injuries in the past, so they will have more chances of being injured. We want to be sure that the rehabilitation programme is right for every individual. That is what we are trying to do now. Andre is closer and you never know because it can change in one training session and he will have a problem. But, in a couple of weeks, he will be fine."
On Tuesday, Everton ruled out the need for Doucoure to have surgery on the stress fracture in his foot and Benitez has also appeared to dismiss the idea of Calvert-Lewin needing an operation on his thigh issue.
"My understanding is that he has already started the programme," Benitez said.
"We were disappointed with the injury and we were analysing why and trying to find solutions. We are working already on that. We have an agreement on the way we want to manage it and then, hopefully, he will be fine. The idea to bring in Cristian [Fernandez] was to improve in this area."
