It is the one thing we all feared would happen . . . Yak's gone bad! Yakubu Ayegbeni is to lazy tardiness what Pete Doherty is to narcotics, and we all should have seen this particular relapse coming a long way off.

Whereas Yak’s Everton and Nigeria teammate, Joey Yobo, was on the first plane home from the African Cup of Nations, Yak decided to go off on a Magical Mystery Tour, and only returned on Friday. All this has caused the initial miasma of noxious whispers about the truculent Nigerian to boomerang back into Evertonians’ consciousness. And because of all this, Middlesbrough fans could be forgiven for bellowing “We told you so!” from the highest peaks in the land.

When rumours were rife that Everton were after Yakubu, the Boro opinion on a Goodison move for the Nigerian seemed to be "good riddance" and "bite their hand off". The Boro message boards seemed eerily smug and happy to see their star striker waddle off into the sunset; I even remember reading a prophetic warning about how he loses all motivation after Christmas. And the criticism for Yakubu didn’t end there. When he signed for the Peoples’ Club he was attacked for being lazy, too expensive and anathema to the Everton ethos.
 
Initially I was unimpressed, his first two goals were of the flat-track bully variety, and his general contribution was that of a slug on Ketamine. This, coupled with potentially better, harder working youngsters breathing down his very large neck, like Victor Anichebe and James Vaughan, left me feeling that Yakubu was, in my mind at least, a royal waste of money.

'Instead of Yakubu’s laziness spreading through the Everton squad, it seemed that a lot of Everton has rubbed off on him'

But instead of Yakubu’s laziness spreading through the Everton squad, it seemed that a lot of Everton has rubbed off on him. Despite this I had continued misgivings that Yak was like Rainman, an idiot savant with only one recognisable skill, the ability to score. The perfect example of this was his goal against Birmingham when the ball bounced off the Nigerian's heel and into the net. Yak somehow contrived to turn a simple paint-by-numbers finish into a complicated goal, but his pre-African Nations tally of 12 goals even began to convert me to his unique charms.

Yakubu can thank his lucky stars that he is the Everton transfer record - as it serves as an aide memoire for Moyes about how brilliantly prolific he can be – and may protect him from being frozen out like Andy van der Meyde. Goals remain Yakubu's currency;  at Maccabi Haifa, he scored seven in eight European Champions League appearances, including a hat-trick against Olympiakos and another against Manchester United. In the Premier League, his goalscoring record in the last few seasons is second only to Thierry Henry, so hopefully this incident will be nipped in the bud by Moyes.

The Moyesiah has been typically tight-lipped and prudent about this matter, keeping everything “in house”. What we do know is that Yak has been fined two weeks' wages (about 80 grand) and that he claims to be sorry for his post African mini-break. Yak isn’t in the Everton squad against Reading and if he’s got half a brain he will stay on the straight and narrow from now on. Best-case scenario – Yakubu proves me wrong. Worse case scenario – Middlesbrough fans are proven to be right.