With reference to Everton’s pursuit of Middlesborough Striker Yakubu, many Evertonians have been asking whether we are barking up the wrong, or maybe the right tree?
My own opinionated answer to this is rather simple, maybe a little mundane. My opinion is that Yakubu is a classic examble of a player who drifts in and out of games. Despite being rather immobile, labelled as being lazy, and with an old fashioned style, I think all these ‘problems’ are sorted out with three simple questions.
1)Does he score goals?
2)Have his previous managers appreciated him at his previous clubs?
3) Can he finish?
The answer to all 3 is yes.Yakubu has scored 53 goals in four seasons in England with Portsmouth and Middlesbrough, and has put far more shots on goal and on target than even Andy Johnson has, plus is a penalty expert. He has a confliciting style to AJ – who is more of a fox in the box, which helps,and far from being lazy added 4 assists to his stats last season for Boro, and is capable of doing the somewhat unexpected. The latter is why he was brought to Evertonians attention, when one evening at Goodison Park he bulldozed through Alan Stubbs and unrelentingly fired the ball with venom into the Gwladys Street net and passed Richard Wright from just inside the penalty area.Plus if thats not enough Harry Redknapp clearly regrets offloading him because his been trying to get hi, back up to Portsmouth!
The lads costing us 11million pounds, and he is a risk, but I think the gamble is a worthwhile one, and he’s certainly a player I’ve always wished we had in our team, and by the look of youtube, is certainly better than the ‘next best thing’ available at the moment which is Wagner Love from CSKA Moscow.
I just hope ‘The Yak’ arrives in time to play Blackburn on saturday.The whole things going to be very interesting.
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