Sean Dyche said Dominic Calvert-Lewin did not start against Manchester City as he was trying to manage his minutes during the busy festive schedule.
The striker has been in his strongest run of fitness in years, missing only the Nottingham Forest game at the beginning of the month since his return against Brentford in September.
He was named on the bench against Manchester City, however, with Dyche later explaining it was part of his attempt to manage a stretched squad.
Abdoulaye Doucoure is currently out with a hamstring injury while the severity of a calf injury suffered by Idrissa Gueye at Tottenham Hotspur is yet to be confirmed. He was absent from the squad on Wednesday night, as was the injured Ashley Young.
Explaining the decision to bench Calvert-Lewin, Dyche said: “You look at his run of games, the amount of games we have had in December, his past and where he has come from and where he is now – trying to manage that and getting him into full, total sharpness.
“Everyone thinks it takes three games it doesn’t, it takes a long period. With all of these games we are having to manage everyone. We are trying, anyway, but we are stretched. We are trying to manage minutes.
“There are certain people who are knocking it out of the park… There are still some really big things for us. We are asking a lot of these players and we will be asking more because that is the nature of the game and that is the nature of the fixture list, but when we do get a chance to try and protect people and make sure they will be right going forward then we have got to do that as well. It is a tough stretch.”
