Moyes won’t rush fit-again James Vaughan back into action

Mar 26 2008 by Ian Doyle, Liverpool Daily Post

DAVID MOYES will not rush James Vaughan back into first-team action before the end of the season.

But the Goodison Park manager admits the young striker will prove a significant miss as Everton head for the finishing line in the race for Champions League qualification.

Vaughan visited world-renowned specialist Dr Richard Steadman in Colorado a fortnight ago to undergo an operation to cure a cartilage problem in his left knee.

It was the latest in a long line of injury woes for the young striker, who missed the first three months of the season after dislocating his shoulder during a pre-season friendly at Preston North End last summer.

Vaughan suffered career-threatening damage to the same knee in September 2005 which required a visit to Dr Steadman as part of his rehabilitation.

The injury-jinxed forward, who became Everton’s youngest-ever goalscorer on his debut in April 2005, has been restricted to just 31 appearances in three years.

And Moyes is determined to give Vaughan all the time necessary to return in the finest fettle.

“He is quite a tough boy mentally but this hasn’t been a bad knee operation,” said the Goodison Park manager. “It’s just been a little procedure to cure his cartilage.

“Because of his history, he’s going to have a bit longer time to recover. Let’s be fair, with only six weeks of the season to go, it would have been quite tight for him to get back anyway.

“But we need to make sure that we look after him correctly. I have always known that will be the case. I said a couple of years ago when he had that first injury, we needed to watch him.

“He missed a lot of his development period and that for me is the only real disappointment as he would have helped us just now.

“His enthusiasm would have played a big part for us.

“We will miss him and we can’t just be relying on Yak. The goals have got to come from other areas, not just the forwards.”

Everton have previously turned down a number of requests to take Vaughan on loan, in the belief the player’s development is best served at Goodison.

And Moyes added: “The one thing we would never try to change is his enthusiasm. His attitude is the reason he has got a great chance of being a Premier League footballer for a long time.

“We need to couple that with getting him experience in games. We did consider at times about whether he should go out on loan.

“But, really, the best experience we felt was to be around the first team here. We need to look at how he plays and what he does, so we can protect him a little bit.

“I can’t alter his style because that’s the way he is and I wouldn’t want him to change it either.”