Well, well,well, Mr. Yakubu! So far, in my mind at least, you have been a right royal blue waste of money, just a flat-track bully, only scoring against such luminaries as Bolton, Sheffield Wednesday and Derby County. Aside from the Derby performance, your general contribution has been more like a slug on ketamine. If Yakubu was a schoolboy he would be shredding his report card to hide the rotten contents from his parents.

For some players, an £11m price tag could be a heavy burden, but for Yakubu it is swiftly becoming the only reason he is still being picked. And with James Vaughan returning from his long-term injury, and AJ on the road to fitness, he can thank his lucky stars that he is the Everton transfer record – as it serves as an aide memoire for Moyes .

Goals used to be Yakubu's currency – at Maccabi Haifa, he scored seven in eight Champions League appearances, including a hat-trick against Olympiakos and another against Manchester United. In the Premier League, his goal-scoring record in the last few seasons compares with an Henry or a Drogba – but take away this history and Yakubu's price tag and we are left with nothing. Will he manage to prove himself at Everton, a team as tethered to the principle of hard-working graft as Spurs are to style?

‘For some players, an £11m price tag could be a heavy burden, but for Yakubu it is swiftly becoming the only reason he is still being picked'


I am reminded of Yakubu’s shocking laziness three times a day when I take my energy-filled Jack Russell for walks which rapidly turn into crazed sprints. When I get home I glance over to the neighbour’s dog, a rancid old beagle with pendulous udders that mopes around the back garden – she is very reminiscent of a certain record signing for Everton. This, coupled with Yakubu’s historical lack of post-Christmas form, as well as harder working (and, arguably, better all-round) youngsters like Vaughan and Victor Anichebe breathing down his very large neck, makes me very worried indeed.

Another thing that baffles me is why we spent so much money on the lad – we should have just doubled our bid for Lucho Gonzalez (who plays in a position where we actually need more bodies) rather than buying this mope from Middlesbrough. The consensus among most of the Boro fans I spoke to during our usual Scrooge-esque dealings with them was that they should take the money and run, and good for them. What rankles even more is the fact that James Beattie is now banging them in for fun at Sheffield United, having played dismally for us.

Faced with all of this, doubts start to creep into my mind about David Moyes – McFadden isn't setting the world alight at Everton (unlike at International level), AJ is in the mother of all slumps, and Beattie – a total dead loss at Everton – is now top scorer in the Championship with nine goals in 13 games for the Blades. Coupled with Moyes' handling of Yakubu, I'm beginning to think that we will forever be aimlessly searching for our ‘20 goals a season’ man.

I can't agree with Tim Sherwood, who says that with Yakubu sometimes you get Thierry Henry and sometimes it's Lenny Henry. So far all we have had is a comedian up front. Yakubu spends most of his footballing life submersed in a state of semi-consciousness, occasionally drifting to the surface about twice a game. Someone needs to investigate Yakubu's internal wiring and change the relaxing slow jams CD that is playing on loop in his head with something heavier. Some Slayer would probably wake him up from his Rip Van Winkle slumber.

Yakubu's signing was a huge risk for Moyes – the Nigerian is as synonymous with an abysmal work-rate as Everton used to be with fluid passing in the ’60s, and Moyes will have known that – so either he had to abandon the work ethic and let Yakubu sit on his backside and score, OR he had to to try and transform Yakubu into a hard-working goalscorer.

But do you pay over £11 million for someone you want to transform? No, but Moyes was clearly still intoxicated by the barn-storming goal that Yakubu scored for Portsmouth against us. Collecting the ball from a header, he charged through several defenders with such strength it was as if Jonah Lomu had switched footballing codes. I hope beyond hope that Yakubu can remind us all of this soon.

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