Vincent Kompany evaluates Lyle Foster risk as four Burnley men expected to miss Everton cup clash

The striker was a big miss through illness for the Clarets on Saturday as they suffered a 2-1 defeat to Bournemouth.

When asked if Foster is likely to come back into contention for the trip to Goodison Park for Burnley’s Carabao Cup fourth round tie, manager Vincent Kompany was unable to provide any assurances.

“I hope so, but we’ll see,” he said.

“The priority is not to take any risk, that he gets anything because of the illness.

“But I’m fairly confident it’s not going to be too bad.”

Elsewhere, Johann Gudmundsson should be available after making his return from injury against the Cherries at the weekend. Connor Roberts also returns after serving his one-match ban.

Hjalmar Ekdal, Jordan Beyer, Manuel Benson and Michael Obafemi are all expected to remain sidelined.

Kompany has used the Carabao Cup as an opportunity to make wholesale changes and utilise his full squad so far this season.

When asked if that’s likely to be the case again, Kompany replied: “I wouldn’t call it this way. We definitely have enough players that would benefit from this game, but I wouldn’t call it this way.

“For us it’s an opportunity for sure in terms of getting the boots back on and getting back on the grass, that’s the best way to talk.

“In the end, whoever plays, it’s still the team talking and still the team sending a message, so if I was them I would want to be back out on the grass as quickly as possible, so this is their opportunity.”