Pienaar set to depart Everton

Everton will be without attacking midfielder Steven Pienaar for their Merseyside derby trip to Liverpool on Sunday.

Everton have accepted a bid from an unnamed team for the 28-year-old South African international, who has started 18 Premier League games this season.

“We have had two offers and one of those offers has been accepted. I think the player probably decided that when he turned down his contract six months or a year ago, whenever it was,” manager David Moyes said on Friday.

Despite the unwelcome distraction, Moyes’ focus is firmly on Liverpool with the club in turmoil following a poor first half of the season and the recent departure of manager Roy Hodgson.

And that suits Moyes just fine.

“The Liverpool circus is not really an issue for us. I can only do the work for Everton – we need to focus on our work. We have to try to get some points – that is really important,” he said.

“We want to move further up the table and get closer to the top and as far away from the bottom as we can.”

Moyes knows Everton are more than capable of getting a result on Sunday because his side has done well against their rivals in recent seasons.

“We’ve not won for 11 games but we’ve been to Anfield quite a lot recently and had quite a few draws there and we won the game at Goodison Park earlier in the season,” he said.

“Anfield has always been a difficult place for any team to go to so who knows what can happen?”

“We’ve tried to compete over the years and get as close to Liverpool as we can. We would always want to finish as high up in the league as we can but obviously you would always want to beat your neighbours.”