Everton Hopeful Over Pienaar

Head physio Mick Rathbone optimistic midfielder's injury is not serious.

Everton head physio Mick Rathbone is hopeful midfielder Steven Pienaar’s injury is not serious.

The South African has been on crutches since suffering a blow to the knee during the Blues' 1-0 win at Portsmouth on Saturday.

Pienaar has been assessed daily and while Rathbone is reluctant to predict how long the 27-year-old will be sidelined, he is optimistic he will not require surgery.

"There's no timescale at the moment but hopefully it will only be something short term," he told evertonTV. "Steven took an almighty knock on the inside of the knee, so he is pretty sore.

"Me and the doctor had a good look at him after we flew back from the game at Portsmouth. Then we had another good look at him yesterday and again today. It has slightly improved but it is still very, very sore to touch.

"There's a lot of bruising and a lot of swelling around the area, so we've got him on crutches at the moment.

"It looks like it is just bruised but I am hesitating because it is so hard to examine the knee. We have looked at the film to see what happened and how it is today and we are pretty confident it is okay. But it is badly bruised and it's pretty sore, as you can imagine."

Subscribers can see a full interview with Mick Rathbone, in which he also talks about Mikel Arteta, Phil Neville and Phil Jagielka on evertonTV now.

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