It’s not unfair to say that this international break has been a bit of a disastrous one for injuries so far. Now Everton have been hit by the curse, at least potentially.
The focus is now on Vitaliy Mykolenko, who is set to miss Ukraine’s clash with Northern Ireland in the Nations League this week.
What’s being said about injury
He’s dealing with some form of injury that’s keeping him out of the team. But Ukraine national team head coach Andrea Maldera has now hinted that it could be something worse than that.
“Unfortunately, we won’t be able to count on Mykolenko for the match against Northern Ireland,” he told Sport.ua.
“He isn’t feeling good; we respect his situation and didn’t want to risk him suffering a more serious injury.”
The outlet points out, though, that it had previously been reported that the Everton defender had returned to full team training.
So, it appears that something has happened behind the scenes for him now to be pulled out entirely.
| Vitaliy Mykolenko — Everton, all competitions | 2024/25 | 2025/26 | 2026/27 so far |
|---|---|---|---|
| Appearances | 37 | 36 | 7 |
| Starts | 37 | 35 | 7 |
| Minutes played | 3,264 | 3,164 | 630 |
| Goals | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Assists | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| Yellow cards | 4 | 6 | 1 |
| Red cards | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Not worth risking it
Suspilne go into a little more detail. They report that Mykolenko will miss Ukraine’s clash with Northern Ireland on Friday. That’s despite playing 94 minutes against Hungary last week.
The Everton full-back then missed the second-round game against Georgia with a leg issue. Maldera had confirmed as much and insisted that they did not want to risk playing him.
Now it appears that the leg injury is worse than first feared, and the Ukraine boss is insisting they don’t want to risk the defender. That should cause some alarm bells at Everton.
They can ill afford Mykolenko being out for any extended period of time. He is the only recognised left-back in the squad at present. The decision to let Adam Aznou leave on loan at the end of the window left the Blues short in that particular area.
Now that particular chicken could be about to come home to roost. All eyes will be on Ukraine as they leave Mykolenko out completely this week.
