Everton's Yannick Bolasie to miss the rest of the year due to knee injury

Everton manager Ronald Koeman has confirmed that winger Yannick Bolasie will be out for the entire year, piling pressure on the Toffees to bring in reinforcements in the January transfer window. The former Crystal Palace winger had an operation last month after injuring his cruciate ligament against Manchester United but will have no part to play in the rest of the season.

"It is a long-term injury - 10, 11, 12 months. He will come back, he has a strong mentality," Koeman said, as quoted by Sky Sports.

The Toffees are currently seventh in the table, nine places adrift of sixth-placed Manchester United but have picked up a bit of steam in their last few games. They have won three of their last five games, including those against Arsenal and Leicester City, with their solitary loss coming against Liverpool in the Merseyside derby.

They completed a 3-0 win over Southampton in their last game while making a good haul in the festive period, where they picked up seven points from a possible nine. Koeman was impressed with the fight shown by his players and expects them to get better in the days to come.

"I mentioned to the players at half time to play at a higher tempo and we did that much better in the second half," Koeman told Everton's official website. "It is always difficult to create big chances, Southampton are a strong team, but we made the difference in the final part of the game.

"The result is very good and we got a clean sheet. We had good organisation about our defending and were defensively strong, and we know we can score goals. The final 30 minutes was very good. It is always nice to have a strong result at home and a clean sheet. It boosts confidence. It was a tough period over Christmas but seven points from nine is really good."