Everton’s chances of beating Liverpool next Sunday have been hampered with the news that at least three, and potentially five, players could to miss the Blues’ first game back after the league’s restart.

Theo Walcott, Yerry Mina and Jean-Philippe Gbamin will all miss the game, whilst there are also doubts about Fabian Delph and Andre Gomes.

However, it looks like Liverpool could be without a player of their own with Xherdan Shaqiri looking likely to miss the game with a muscle injury.

The Swiss international scored Liverpool’s second goal of the game when the two sides met in the Premier League back in December, as The Reds hammered the Blues 5-2 in what turned out to be Marco Silva’s final game in charge.

However, he won’t have the chance to do the double over the Blues as he’s yet to fully train with his teammates and he’s not been able to play in the Reds’ warm-up games either because of a muscle injury.

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Shaqiri probably wouldn’t have started the Derby anyway, but he could have been on Liverpool’s bench and given that teams can now bring on five substitutes, he may well have got on the pitch.

The Reds still have plenty of attacking options available to them though and in truth, we don’t think then losing Shaqiri will have any major impact on the game, whereas Everton will be seriously hampered if Delph and Gomes are ruled out.