David Moyes says new signings Nikica Jelavic and Steven Pienaar are in contention to face Wigan at the DW Stadium on Saturday.
The Blues boss does, however, have concerns as to whether South African Pienaar is ready to play 90 minutes after months of inaction at Spurs.
“The big concern out of two boys we brought in is Steven,” said the Everton boss. “Nikica is probably more ready to play, even though he had the flu and didn’t play for Rangers last week.
“Steven is the one who has had only bits and pieces of football so there is a concern as to whether he is ready for 90 minutes and ready for a regular 90 minutes at the moment.
“But they tell me when he was a young boy he was a cross country champion in South Africa and as you can imagine that would take some doing! So I am hoping he has still got a bit of that in him.”
Jelavic, who Moyes said will be given time to settle in, will have to oust Denis Stracqualursi if he is to play up front, and that will be no easy task after the big Argentine produced a lung-busting and wholehearted display against Manchester City on Tuesday night.
Moyes said: “Nobody is saying because Nikica was banging in goals in Scotland he will come here and do it straight away. He is here for a long time and we are not desperate that he gets up and running straight away – it would be nice if he did – but he is here for four and a half years so he will be given every opportunity to be a success.”
As for Stracqualursi, he added: “Denis deserved the ovation he got (against Man City) from the supporters because of how hard he worked. It is a strange game football, supporters want to be entertained but they also want to see honesty and endeavour and they certainly saw bags of that from Denis. He was a goalscorer in Argentina and we are hoping he will start getting the goals to go with his effort. He got one against Fulham and then was unlucky against City where he had one kicked off the line.”
The Blues will still be without Jack Rodwell (hamstring), Seamus Coleman (groin), Leon Osman (knee), Phil Jagielka (knee) and Sylvain Distin (hamstring), even if there has been some progress this week.
“Sylvain and Jack are getting much closer,” continued Moyes. “But Phil Jagielka, Leon Osman and Seamus Coleman are much further away still. There are some good signs. Leon did a bit of light jogging today which was great to see, but in truth those boys are four weeks away.”
One player who did return to the side after injury last week was Tony Hibbert, who replaced Shane Duffy as an auxiliary centre-half against Man City.
And Moyes added: "I thought Tony's experience could help us. I thought the game wouldn't be played with lots of balls up the pitch and lots of crosses, I thought it would be played where they'd be sliding passes through and (Sergio) Aguero's quickness and change of direction would be key.
"I thought it was suited for Tony Hibbert to play at centre half and I think it was the right choice. If we'd lost the game, I would probably still have said it was the right choice, even if people said it was the wrong one."
