Lack of strike power hits Everton

Everton may be able to muddle through until the new year with just one fit senior forward, but their manager, David Moyes, knows there will be little light at the end of the tunnel when January comes.

The Scot is without Aiyegbeni Yakubu (right) for the rest of the campaign because of a ruptured Achilles tendon suffered in Sunday's 1-0 win at Tottenham Hotspur. James Vaughan is out until the new year with a knee injury and Louis Saha also picked up a hamstring problem at White Hart Lane that will keep him out of action for at least three weeks.

With Victor Anichebe, who has not had an unblemished injury record himself, his only option, Moyes will switch to the 4-5-1 system that proved so successful last season, with Tim Cahill playing just behind the Nigerian forward and his only back-up in the striking department is Lucas Jutkiewicz, who is only 19. The former Swindon player had a loan spell at Plymouth Argyle last season but made just one start for the Championship club.

Despite the £10.5m sale of Andy Johnson to Fulham last summer that money was spent on the club record £15m paid for central midfielder Marouane Fellaini, so there is no money available for transfers. Even before it became clear that the Bayern Munich forward Lukas Podolski was set to move to Cologne, a £10m fee that the Germany international is likely to command would have proved prohibitive. Moyes remains interested in CSKA Moscow's Wagner Love and attempted to sign the Brazilian striker during the summer only to be thwarted by the complex nature of the deal. He has continued to monitor the forward since but again a £12m fee is likely to prove beyond the Goodison Park club. Everton have long been linked with Newcastle's Michael Owen but such a deal also appears unlikely.

What is likely to prove a further stumbling block to new additions is Moyes' unwillingness to disrupt his squad in order to generate funds for a new forward, meaning that a stop-gap loan deal is the only chance of new blood being brought into the club.

Moyes is also loathe to take any action that could affect the long-term plan he has for his team, which meant that apart from Fellaini, he brought in Saha on a performance-related contract – the deal was such because of concerns over the striker's fitness – signed Lars Jacobsen for a year and also brought in the midfielder Segundo Castillo on season-long loan deal.

Moyes has a relatively small squad and six years into his reign, there are few players that he would consider allowing to leave Goodison. He remains adamant that Leighton Baines still has a future with the club, while Andy van der Meyde, whose contract expires in the summer, is unwilling to depart before then.

With a key match with Aston Villa to come at the weekend, the midfielder Mikel Arteta maintains that Everton can cope with just one striker. He said: "We are short of strikers but we are playing five midfielders now and maybe we just need one up front. The game against Villa is going to be massive so we have to prepare and help the team-mates as much as we can, not think about the injuries and focus on the games."

Steven Pienaar, though, who scored the winner against Spurs, admitted the extent of the damage Yakubu's absence would cause the club. "It is a huge blow to lose Yak and we are all so sorry for him," he said. "We know the quality he has got and the type of person he is."