David Moyes shares heartbreaking update on "brilliant" Everton star who now faces a race against time

The veteran centre-back’s run of 109 consecutive Premier League appearances has come to an end and already manager David Moyes is anxiously looking towards preparations for the new campaign.

“He is going to be out for the rest of the season,” said Moyes. “He will have an operation on his hamstring and it’s a big blow to us because Tarky plays such a big role in how we’ve done so well.

“I think he will be back [for pre-season] but it could start to eat into that as well.”

Everton have the luxury of being mathematically safe ahead of their trip to Chelsea, which is an unusual position for them to be in over the last few years. It gives Moyes the opportunity to start considering his options for next season as he has a significant rebuilding job to undertake with around a dozen players out of contract in the summer.

He is hoping new owners The Friedkin Group have “deep pockets” but has yet to have in-depth discussions about serious targets.

“We’ve got those decisions to make coming up in the coming weeks. We have several players out of contract, we’ve got a few players on loan,” he added. “So a lot of it will be the new owners seeing what we can and can’t do with the budget for next season.

“We’ve had parts of meetings but it changes all the time. There are bits we need to find out, we have to make sure we are clear in all our PSR (profitability and sustainability rules) issues. We need to see how deep their pockets are and hopefully they will be deep and give us a chance to make some signings and make some additions to the squad.

“We’ve had the discussions but ultimately when it comes down to saying ‘Can we buy a player for X amount or can we afford the wages?’ that might be when it changes.

“I can only suggest the players who I’d like to bring in if possible and they have to be the ones who give it the go ahead.”