Marco Silva admits he rolled the dice in naming such an attacking set of substitutions for Everton's last game and says he won't normally take such 'risks'.
The Blues boss had an offensive midfielder, two wingers and a pair of strikers on the bench for last weekend's first home game of the season against Watford.
Silva has revealed that he toyed with including new loan signing Djibril Sidibe as part of his matchday 18 but instead opted to name as an attack-minded group of subs he could.
The Everton boss says his usual preference would be to have a full-back option on the bench and so Leighton Baines, back from injury, is in contention to be part of the squad for tonight's game with Aston Villa.
And, as Silva hints, Baines' return could mean that Cenk Tosun misses out.
“I had Sidibe in the squad list also,” Silva says.
“I took with me to the game 20 players – three goalkeepers and 17 players. We left one goalkeeper out, as is normal, and the other was Sidibe.
“I can tell you, in that moment, I tried to have more offensive solutions on our bench but I took a small risk in that moment being so offensive in our bench with just one central defender, one midfielder and four offensive solutions.
“I tried to plan the game and see what it would give me. I took the risk just to stay with Mason because he can play as a right-back as well. I had Tom for the midfielder zone. I took that decision and it was so simple. I tried to get two strikers on the bench and it is not normal you have two strikers on the bench, normally you have one striker on the bench but I wanted two because the game could give me two different things.
The game could become more open and a striker such as Moise Kean makes more sense if you want to change or if the game is tight then a striker like Cenk makes more sense because in a short space, if you look at his profile and the profile of Moise Kean – they are completely different.
“And in the games at Goodison with the other teams using a low block in a tight game you have to look at the profile of your strikers and so I took the decision to stay with a lot of offensive solutions on the bench.”
Jonas Lossl is expected to be named as Everton's back-up keeper with Baines in contention also .
Holgate is set to retain his place which would then leave Silva likely to pick Alex Iwobi and then two from Theo Walcott, Tom Davies and a central midfielder.
“In a normal situation, I would not take that type of decision with just one defender and one midfielder,” he added.
“In normal situations I would have one full-back and one defender on the bench, even if I have just one midfielder because if you look for that offensive solution then Alex Iwobi can play out wide but also can play as an offensive midfielder also. It means I can have two offensive midfielders because Alex can play there also but normally, most of the time, I will get one full-back on the pitch.”
