Everton midfielder Tom Davies could be on the sidelines for much longer than initially feared as the 23-year-old recovers from a thigh injury sustained in November.

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According to injury expert Ben Dinnery, who runs the Premier Injuries website, Davies could be out until April, after Everton initially suggested that the midfielder would be out for just one month.

Before his sacking this week, ex-Toffees boss Rafa Benitez stated that the 23-year-old could now be out for "one or two months" after having surgery to correct his issue.

However, speaking to Football Insider, Dinnery revealed: “Given what we know about players and how they recover after going under the knife, any return in that timeframe would be an amazing outcome.

“The return to play data has us in and around that 100 to 105-day mark. So we may be talking closer to three or four months for this type of procedure.

“So it could be we’re looking more towards April time rather than the February-March return that they might have been targeting.”

Everton fans will be fuming

Although Davies isn't a regular in the Everton side, the Goodison Park faithful will always want as big a pool of available players as possible for every game and the situation is no different with the midfielder.

Prior to sustaining his injury, the 23-year-old had played just five league games out of a possible 11, starting just one.

However, that was under former manager Rafa Benitez and now, with caretaker manager Duncan Ferguson in charge, there may have been an opportunity for the Englishman to have a run in the side as the blue half of Merseyside look to get themselves as far away from the dreaded drop zone as quickly as possible.

Moreover, Everton aren't particularly blessed with midfield options with Fabian Delph sidelined, and the only other regulars being Allan, Abdoulaye Doucouré and André Gomes, whilst Jean-Phillipe Gbamin has featured just five times in all competitions this season.

Next up for the Merseyside outfit is a home game against Aston Villa and should one of the aforementioned trio also suffer an injury, the Toffees will be on the brink of a midfield crisis and will need Davies back as soon as possible in order to maintain depth in the middle of the park.

In other news: Everton must avoid another manager disaster with "arrogant" 58 y/o, he'd be Rafa 2.0