Everton brace for Cahill departure

Everton manager David Moyes is hoping his side’s three game unbeaten run continues as he prepares to lose his star striker for up to a month.

Everton have struggled for goals this season, thanks to injuries to Louis Saha, Victor Anichebe and Yakubu, and have only been saved by talisman Tim Cahill. The Australian striker, however, is leaving for the Asia Cup in January and Moyes wants a win over West Ham on Tuesday as a farewell present.

“We are in a difficult position because we have not been scoring enough goals,” Moyes said.

“I said that I would like to see where we are in the table after Christmas and we are not completely away from the bottom three yet. We have to make that and then maybe we can talk about challenging for a European place but first we have to get away from the bottom three.”

Everton are unbeaten in December, after draws with Chelsea and Wigan and a win over Manchester City, and with the trip to Upton Park their last game of the year they are hoping to end 2010 on a high.

“We hope we carry on the momentum we had from the win over Manchester City, it’s a difficult place to go, it always has been and West Ham had a really good result against Fulham on Sunday,” he said.

“We will have to go there and play well and try to get a result.”

Moyes was unhappy that Boxing Day’s game with Birmingham was postponed but it has given extra recovery time to two important players who might return for the trip to east London.

“It’s just a case of wanting to play the games in order and Boxing Day is a big fixture day. I was disappointed for Birmingham who had travelled up after having to leave their families on Christmas day.”

“The two games in three days was going to be a hard task for any squad so you don’t know, some people say they would love to play two games in three days but it depends on how you look at it.”