Pienaar to miss start of season

Steven Pienaar’s injury woes look set to continue, with the Everton midfielder ruled out of the start of the new season due to a hamstring problem.

The South Africa international made just nine Premier League appearances in 2014-15 as a knee injury badly hampered his campaign.

And on Monday, manager Roberto Martinez confirmed Pienaar would be unavailable for Everton’s season opener against Watford on August 8.

“Obviously it was a really sad moment for all of us when Stevie picked up that injury in training,” he told the club’s official website.

“He’s gone back now to be fully assessed by our medical team at Finch Farm and we’ll get the results very soon. 

“But it does seem it’s a problem with his hamstring and clearly he’s going to miss the start of the season, which is a real shame because Stevie worked with fantastic results and fantastic signs over the first three weeks or pre-season.

“We were very, very down about that situation and we hope to get Stevie back as soon as we can.”