Everton coach Steve Stone says there's hope they can rely on Dominic Calvert-Lewin this new season.
The striker missed much of last term with injury.
Stone told the Liverpool Echo: Dominic always looks great. He's probably a couple of weeks away from joining back in with us because of what happened at the back end of last season.
Dominic probably needs time. We don't come out now and go 'We need to play Dominic Calvert-Lewin right now.'
We don't need to put the pressure on Dominic all the time. I would say you probably need other options in your team, if you look at other Premier League teams, a lot of them have three or four strikers who they can rely on, especially if you're playing a 4-4-2.
Dominic is a little bit behind the rest at the minute in terms of where he's at but that is to be expected, we knew that from the end of last season. It's not about if Dominic is going to be fit for the first game of the season, it's can we get Dominic 'fit fit' and we mean really fit like he was two years ago so when we play him you go 'oh yeah.'
I saw Dominic like that for a couple of games this year. The first half at home to Arsenal when we first arrived and the 5-1 win at Brighton and you looked at him and thought 'you're some player son, you're a really, really good player.'
That was him probably at 75-80% fit at the time. If we can get Dominic 'fit fit' so he can start lasting games, not having to come off and get these injuries, then you've got a player on your hands but at the minute he's just a little bit behind the rest.
That's normal in pre-season and Seamus (Coleman) is a couple of months behind and Patto (Nathan Patterson) is a little bit behind after his injury at the end of last season and that's what pre-season is for. A fit Dominic is a real handful and I'm looking forward to working with him on a regular basis because we didn't at the end of last season and there are issues that we need to address at the top end of the pitch in terms of scoring goals and he's all about that."