Dyche laughs off rumours around Onana omission.

Sean Dyche has dismissed suggestions that he was ready to leave Amadou Onana out of yesterday’s team to face Bournemouth for disciplinary reasons.

The Belgian was set to be named among the substitutes for the clash with the Cherries before Idrissa Gueye sustained an injury in the warm-up and had to withdraw from the game, with Onana reclaiming his place in midfield alongside James Garner.

Rumours spread on social media when the teams were announced that Onana had arrived late for training during the week and that Dyche had tempoarily dropped him as a result but the manager has rejected that notion in comments relayed by the Liverpool Echo.

“Imagine! Imagine how I’m the manager, and yet apparently the internet knows more than me,” Dyche exclaimed. “That is the modern world. It’s not about that at all.

“Gana was going to play, and he got injured. I mentioned it before: we have four; we could move other people around in there, but Jimmy, Amadou, Gana, Douc, the main group in there, were fighting, all of them.

“Douc may be slightly different because he’s in a more advanced role. But certainty, the other three are very good players; obviously, Gana has got more experience.”

Regardless of the reasons behind Dyche’s decision, his selection dilemma in central midfield might have got more acute following the Blues’ 3-0 win, where Garner excelled in his preferred role and Onana was an increasingly dominant presence as the match wore on.

Dyche’s pre-planned change to that part of the pitch was influenced in part by the poverty of his team’s performance against Luton the week before and the fact that Jack Harrison had been pressing his case for a full debut wide on the right where Garner had been deployed prior to this weekend.

Gueye’s injury was described as a heel or ankle problem but as of yet there is no indication of its severity or how long he might be sidelined, if at all. Everton don’t play again until 21st October because of the international break giving the Senegal international time to recover if the problem is only minor.