David Moyes is happy with extra quality at Everton

Oct 29 2007 by Chris Beesley, Liverpool Daily Post

EVERTON manager David Moyes has hailed record signing Yakubu as being a far more intelligent footballer than he first realised – and admitted he is now looking forward to the £11.25million striker embarking on a scoring streak.

Despite scoring on his debut at Bolton on September 1, the Nigerian frontman has endured a sporadic start to his Everton career and was an unused substitute against Larissa in the UEFA Cu group stages on Thursday.

However, the former Middlesbrough man produced arguably his best display in an Everton jersey in a 2-0 win at Pride Park yesterday.

His clever dummy enabled Mikel Arteta to open the scoring against Derby County before he added the second himself in the second half to register his first Premier League goal since his debut. Moyes said: “When he gets through on goal in the main he doesn’t miss.

“All we want him to do is score the goals he got for Portsmouth and Middlesbrough, that’s what we brought him here for.

“Today he delivered an important goal which took the pressure off us. Sometimes when it’s 1-0, you can get a bit of a bombardment late on.

“He played his part in the first goal, it was a great dummy. You need to know what’s around you and to have intelligence and awareness to know where people were with the weight of the pass.

“The whole package is there. He’s a better footballer than I thought and a more intelligent footballer than I thought and I think that showed with a couple of things he did today.”

Although Yakubu’s goalscoring record in recent seasons stands up against many of his Premier League counterparts, there had been criticism in some quarters in recent weeks for a supposed lack of work rate in his performances for Everton.

But Moyes was delighted to see an energetic display from Yakubu, which he feels will prove the doubters wrong.

He said: “It’s amazing, what we really enjoy in Britain is folk who work.

“People pay their money, yes they want to see great levels of skill and we all applaud the top players but we’re a nation who say ‘come and put your graft in’ – it’s part of our culture.

“Yak did that and got a standing ovation.”

“I’ve been told that sometimes he goes in spells of not scoring then he scores six in a patch.

“He’s someone who does that and strikers can be like that – I’m looking forward to this patch now.”

It was a defensive solidity in particular that caught Moyes’ eye with the hosts unable to make any real breakthrough against a backline that was marshalled for the second successive game by stand-in skipper Joseph Yobo.

Moyes said: “I thought we defended well and didn’t look under a great threat in that respect.

“We knew it would be a tough game, Derby have got a good home record and they’re on a little bit of an up after a good result at Fulham.

“For long periods I felt we were in control and were comfortable in what we had to do – it was a good away performance, I’d have taken that before the game.

“Joe’s been here a while and we want him to take responsibility.

“I thought both his and Joleon Lescott’s performances were very good.”

After dropping down into the bottom half of the table following their controversial Merseyside derby defeat – a fourth loss in five Premier League games – Moyes acknowledged it was important to get the win which has moved his side up to ninth place.

He said: “It was important that we got into the right half of the league.

“We’ve had to hang in there a little bit, we’ve been waiting on people coming back from injury and we’ve not been playing as well as we can but there’s certainly been signs in the last few games that we’re coming back into form and people are starting to regain a bit of confidence.

“That’s partly due to the lads coming back from injury and we’ve got James Vaughan probably coming back in a week’s time and Andrew Johnson in maybe only two weeks.

“We’re really close to having a full squad to pick from which will give us more options.”

The only real blemish on Everton’s victory was an injury to Leighton Baines following a tackle by Darren Moore which forced the left-back to withdraw from the action at half-time.

Moyes said: “Leighton got a kick and a twist at the same time.

“I thought it would have been better being a free-kick than an advantage. But he looks like he’s hurt his ankle and his shin a bit and it looks like he’s going to be out for a week or so.”