Everton Football Club News

• Nickname:Toffees
• Founded:1878
• Manager:David Moyes

• Ground:Goodison Park
• Capacity:42,440

Arteta adds to Moyes' woes

06 Dec 2006 - 09:34:33

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Everton manager David Moyes' injury concerns have intensified after it was confirmed that Mikel Arteta will be sidelined for two weeks with an ankle injury.

The Spanish midfielder joins Tim Cahill, Alessandro Pistone, Gary Naysmith, Phil Neville and Victor Anichebe in the Goodison treatment room while Andy Johnson only returned to action at the weekend following injury.

Everton head physio Mick Rathbone told the club's official website: "He kicked the ground and took a hell of a chunk out of the ground. He strained the whole of his ankle.

"He actually came in the day after for a fitness test with a big swollen ankle! That swelling is now going down and the scan has confirmed what we believed in that he's actually jarred the whole joint and not actually damaged one particular structure.

"He's making pretty good progress and we're hoping he'll be not such a long-term absentee - maybe a couple of weeks."

On Neville's recovery, Rathbone added: "Phil tweaked his medial knee ligament against Manchester United. He joined in for training on Saturday and tweaked it again, which to a certain extent wasn't unexpected.

"He wanted to give himself a chance for the game but he's making great progress. We have to be careful because we don't want to push him and then he ends up missing another game. But it's not a particularly serious injury."