Everton midfielder handed debut by Carlo Ancelotti faces test after injuries clear up

Unlike the rest of his Everton team-mates at the Pirelli Stadium, Tyler Onyango has actually played first-team football this season, but after a loan spell at Burton Albion last term, last night felt more like a hangover for the Blues against the Brewers.

Onyango’s brief taste of action with Sean Dyche’s senior side came in the shape of coming on as a last-minute substitute for Abdoulaye Doucoure in the 4-0 Premier League defeat at Aston Villa on August 20. Some 24 hours before the first-team’s swift return to Villa Park for a Carabao Cup tie, the midfielder was instead on duty at his old stomping ground to add some valuable experience and physical presence to a youthful visitors’ line-up.

Given his towering presence, it’s perhaps easy to forget that Onyango is still almost six months shy of his 21st birthday but it wasn’t just his size that made him often resemble a man among boys in this team of relative rookies. After making his senior bow as an 85th-minute substitute for Andre Gomes in an FA Cup fourth-round tie against Sheffield Wednesday back in January 2021 – on a night that Carlo Ancelotti also brought on Thierry Small, a player now struggling for minutes on loan at St Mirren, to become the youngest player in Everton history – Onyango has gone on to make five first-team appearances.

But while he’s been in and around Dyche’s squad in the early weeks of the campaign, also being named on the bench against Fulham, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Sheffield United and Arsenal in the Premier League plus Doncaster Rovers in the Carabao Cup, the Luton-born player currently finds himself caught somewhere in between the first and second teams when it comes to actually getting on the pitch.

Everton U21s boss Paul Tait pleased