Baines facing at least three months out

Everton defender Leighton Baines will be out of action for at least three months after an ankle operation, the Premier League club announced on Thursday.

Forward Kevin Mirallas has recovered from the ankle injury which forced him off against Watford last weekend.

Odion Ighalo has admitted that he was a bit lucky with the goal he scored against Everton at Goodison Park on the opening weekend of the 2015/16 Barclays English Premier League season.

“Everything had been ideal in Leighton’s programme and he worked extremely hard in pre-season”, Martinez told reporters about Baines’ injury after Saturday’s clash with Watford.

The 30-year-old missed Everton’s tour of Singapore in July but returned for their mini-training camp in Scotland and was on course to face Watford in the season’s curtain raiser at Goodison.

He could miss 13 Premier League games for Everton with a 14 week lay-off and will be sidelined for England’s Euro qualifiers against San Marino and Switzerland in September, and October’s double-header against Estonia and Lithuania.

Everton manager Roberto Martinez has Costa Rica worldwide Bryan Oviedo and youngster Brendan Galloway to deputise at left-back and said: “We feel it will be the same recovery time as the last operation, which was between 12 and 16 weeks”.

“With Mason, an opportunity came up and we didn’t want to lose out”, he explained. His development is going to be important and it will be interesting to see how quickly he can have an impact on the first-team. “He has been very impressive and is someone who can play in that position for us for a long time”.