One thing we can safely say for this game, without fear of criticism, is that it lived down to expectations: Stoke were going to string four players built like rugby prop-forwards across their back four – tick; they came to defend, in depth, with no attacking ambitions whatsoever, so long as the scores remained even – tick; it would require patience and maybe a touch of luck to break them down – tick; it would not be pretty – tick. Thankfully, the only prediction that we got wrong was that we didn’t have to watch Rory Delap trundle up the touchline, dry the ball on his shirt, and launch one of his mortar shells into the penalty area.

With Pennant and Kenwyne Jones recovered from their “flu-like symptoms” (maybe they had flu) Stoke were more or less at full strength and with Arteta passed fit and Rodwell on the bench, after resuming training earlier in the week, this was about as strong a team as Moyes could field minus the long-term injured Fellaini, Osman and Anichebe. Everton completely dominated possession during the first half, but created only one clear-cut chance, which Yakubu fluffed. Stoke were largely unruffled, kept ten men behind the ball and made sure that when Everton’s two most creative players, Arteta and Pienaar, had possession, they were double marked. Distin especially, but also Jagielka looked solid at the back.

Just as Goodison was beginning to grumble, as only she can, and following a disallowed goal by Tuncay, David Moyes made the tactical change which helped to turn the game; with an hour gone he took off Seamus Coleman for Louis Saha. The introduction of a second forward, and one of real quality, rather than the out-of-his-depth, Jermaine Beckford, had an immediate impact. Instantly the Blues looked sharper and more cohesive. Steven Pienaar attacking down the right wing left Collins for dead, and, although his cross was poor, Yakubu nicked the ball and managed to set up Tim Cahill who’s instant shot hit the post. The burly Nigerian was first to the rebound but still had plenty to do, he beat a defender before smashing the ball, in true Yakubu style, into the roof of the net from an acute angle. In truth a far more difficult chance taken than one he spurned in the first half when he was released by Pienaar but fired tamely straight at Bergovic in the Stoke goal.

Not that it was game over, far from it, Pulis introduced Pennant and Whelan, and Stoke started to make inroads, aided by an Everton backline, who, for the last fifteen minutes defended far too deeply. It would not have been a surprise had Stoke nicked an equalizer in the closing minutes.

Yakubu was superb, his link-up play faultless, his passing, long and short, was accurate and crisp, and he created and took his chance with power and certainty. Further back we would pick out Johnny Heitinga who is now getting back into gear after a slow start to the season. His distribution is superb, his interventions always timely as he prompts and probes. One area of concern is the occasional defensive frailty of Leighton Baines; he allowed Tuncay to bundle his way past him and prod home a disallowed goal, which on another day would have stood, and did not seem to be fully aware of the danger. It’s something we have noted before; in the World Cup warm-up game at Wembley against Mexico, Leighton’s poor defending was clearly in evidence, the national newspapers the next morning gave him an average rating of just 3 out of 10. We recognize that he is hugely talented going forward, but would just ask that he sharpens up inside his own twelve yard box. Next weekend it’s the short journey to Blackpool with the squad further strengthened by another week of hard training for the returning Jack Rodwell and Louis Saha. The last time this writer was at Bloomfield Road was in September 1970 when Everton won 2-0 thanks to goals from Jimmy Husband and the hugely underrated Johnny Morrissey.

EVERTON (4-1-4-1): Howard; Neville ©, Jagielka, Distin, Baines; Heitinga; Coleman (Saha 62), Arteta, Cahill, Pienaar; Yakubu (Bilyaletdinov 86)

Unused subs: Mucha, Hibbert, Beckford, Gueye, Rodwell

STOKE CITY (4-4-1-1): Begovic; Huth, Shawcross ©, Faye, Collins; Walters (Pennant 73), Wilson (Whelan 77), Whitehead, Etherington; Tuncay; Jones

Unused subs: Nash, Higginbotham, Gudjohnsen, Delap, Wilkinson

Referee: Lee Probert

Gate: 35,513  Change from last season -1,240 (3.3%)

Moron of the Year?

West Ham Chairman David Sullivan came out yesterday and gave his opinion on Yakubu’s market price. Sullivan said:

“Everything has a price. You want to get Yakubu for £1-2 million and they are quoting £8 million and that is far too much.

“They have to be more realistic. If they said £1-2m we might go back. We bid more at the start of the summer because we had more flexibility but, at this moment in time, having spent some of our money on other players we want him for £1-2m.”

With gutter rag The S*n claiming that West Ham want £20million from Liverpool for Carlton Cole, are we to assume that Sullivan thinks that Yakubu is only a tenth of a player that Carlton Cole is? Yakubu has scored 19 goals in 49 league games for us, as for Carlton Cole he has scored eight more than the Yak, 27 goals – in a whopping 78 games. David Sullivan, early entrant for Moron of the Year?

A draw would have been a disappointment for the Toffees, but late goals from Lee Carsley and James Vaughan pushed them towards the three points. It is now four wins in a row for Everton in all competitions and all of a sudden the heartburn of losing to Liverpool seems to have eased.

Everton now have the triumvirate of Tim Cahill, Thomas Gravesen, and Carsley fully fit – the potent combination that drove them to fourth place and into Europe. The fact that the squad has since been considerably improved yet a second fourth-place finish hasn’t been achieved shows what a complicated balance has to be struck between a close tight-knit team and a squad with the depth to cope with multiple tournaments.

Everton went ahead after just ten minutes when Yakubu did exactly what he was brought in for – and scored. I have been a big critic of Yakubu, but he is obviously like the Rainman, an idiot savant with only one recognizable skill, the ability to score. In this case the ball bounced off the Nigerian’s heel and into the net. Sandwiched between this goal, a simple paint-by-numbers finish turned into a complicated goal by the Yak, were several profligate misses. I have been critical of the Nigerian, and I will continue to criticise him. I’m very superstitious and my childhood memories of watching the Toffees were punctuated with touching wood every 10 seconds to stave off potential bad luck; and there seems to be a strange symmetry between my criticism and his goals.

Birmingham’s equaliser was the matching bookend to Yakubu’s opener, coming 10 minutes from the end, and the shock of dropping two points combined with the gaggle of needless misses earlier in the game pushed Everton back into life. With seconds remaining, Carsley punched a 20-yarder right into the top corner and, seemingly not satisfied with that, he then set up the returning Vaughan to score a third.

Everton now have a horde of potential goalscorers; Yakubu, Vaughan, Cahill, Victor Anichebe, Andy Johnson, Mikel Arteta, and even Joleon Lescott have proven their goal-nabbing capabilities.

Everton’s squad now looks a far cry from the emaciated three-point gathering machine of the Champions League qualifying season. A swarm of polyglot players have been brought in, both Phil Jagielka and Phil Neville can fill a number of roles, and Lescott is becoming increasingly comfortable with speaking the language of a left-back.

Arteta and the slight Steven Pienaar have shown the beginning of an excellent relationship, and Gravesen, the goggle-eyed Dane, will also thrive next to these two. Perhaps it is time for Everton to stop being labelled as a long-ball side; the only residue from that era is Tony Hibbert, constantly shooting the ball upfield searching for the ghost of Duncan Ferguson.

At half-time in this game a cavalcade of past heroes were paraded around Goodison. Historically this brings a tear to the eye and a lump in the throat, our present players looking poor in comparison to past legends, with the inflated memories of their achievements.

Half-time at Goodison is usually a time for worries to mount, for programmes to be throttled in the clammy hands of umpteen pessimist Toffees; a retired Neville Southall once even came out for a half-time tear-jerker, urging the fans to give one final push in a relegation scramble. These days we look forward to the second half, rather than back to our past heroes. For once thoughts were of the present, and the halcyon past wasn’t dragging us down.

And why oh why did we spend so much on him – we should have just doubled our bid for Lucho Gonzales rather than buying this mope from Middlesbrough. The consensus amongst 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 Beattie is now top scorer in the Championship charts 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…and coupled with Moyes’ handling of Yakubu I begin to think that we will forever be aimlessly searching for our ’20 goal a season man’.

I’m starting to disagree with Tim Sherwood in his assessment that with Yakubu sometimes you get Thierry Henry, and sometimes you get Lenny Henry. So far all we have had is a comedian upfront. Yakubu spends most of his footballing life lying relaxed submersed in 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 60′s 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 play over £11 million for someone you want to transform? No, there is a much simpler answer to this mess…Moyes is still intoxicated with the barnstorming goal that Yakubu scored for Portsmouth against us…Collecting the ball from a header he charged through several Everton defenders with such strength it was as if Jonah Lomu had switched footballing codes and then slapped the ball through the back of the goal…If only he could come up with something like that on Saturday all will be forgiven…