Everton boss Marco Silva has confirmed striker Cenk Tosun still has a role to play at the club despite regularly being named on the bench.

The Turkish forward has netted seven goals since being signed by Sam Allardyce last January from Besiktas for a reported fee of around £27million.

However, he has only scored two goals so far this season, the last of which came in October, and was left out of the 18-man squad for the 5-1 win at Burnley.

Silva has preferred to use Dominic Calvert-Lewin as his main centre forward this season, or even choose to go with no recognised natural striker, with Richarlison regularly playing as the front man.

The Portuguese boss’ decisions have seen Tosun and fellow forward Oumar Niasse shunted to the sidelines. However, Silva has confirmed that Tosun still remains as part of his plans.

“Yes. Why not?,” he confirmed at a press conference hen asked about the 27-year-old’s future.

“It was not just Cenk Tosun who was out of the squad. It is part of my decisions and for this match, for the squad list, I have decided to go with [Oumar] Niasse [who was an unused substitute].

“Let’s see what I will do (for the Brighton game) and in the next matches as well. But it is not because one player stays one match out of the squad list that he doesn’t have a future in our club.”

Tosun is available at 3.00 to score anytime on Saturday against Brighton while Everton are priced at 2.20 to defeat the Seagulls at the Amex Stadium, with Brighton at 3.40 and the draw also at 3.40.