Vitalii Mykolenko is an early injury doubt for the Anfield derby after being forced to withdraw from Ukraine's Nations League game with Belgium this evening with an unspecified thigh injury.

The left-back was substituted with 21 minutes left of the regulation 90 with the Ukrainians leading 3-1 on aggregate thanks to their win in the first leg.

However, a goal almost immediately from Maxim De Cuyper made it 1-0 to the Red Devils on the night and 3-2 overall and a double from former Blue, Romelu Lukaku, in the final quarter of an hour turned the tie on its head.

Mykolenko will undergo scans on the soft-tissue injury, which could be a hamstring strain, when he returns to Finch Farm and he will have 10 days in which to recover before Everton travel across Stanley Park for the second all-Mersey clash of the season.

Ukraine's head coach, Serhiy Rebrov, said: “Unfortunately, he has an injury, he will do an MRI, we'll see. I know Vitalii. If he didn't continue playing, then the injury was really serious.”

Moyes will potentially have Ashley Young on standby to deputise for Mykolenko at left-back, while the manager has other options in terms of a back three of James Tarkowski, Jake O'Brien and Jarrad Branthwaite.

The later two were also involved for their countries this week, with O'Brien starting in the Republic of Ireland's 2-1 win over Bulgaria and Branthwaite playing the final 17 minutes of England U21s' 5-3 defeat to France. 

Reader Responses

Selected thoughts from readers
Certain off-topic comments may be removed to keep the discussion on track

1  James Flynn
24/03/2025    16:05:31

Ugh!

2  Si Cooper
24/03/2025    00:09:01

Are you trying to start a caption competition James?

Hopefully not too serious, although I suspect he will be hurting almost as much for what happened after he left the pitch. Did the Belgians not get the memo about all of us being extra nice to Ukrainians to compensate (minutely) for Trump selling them out.
A fresh challenge for Moyesy in the ongoing scrutinising of the squad.

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