Harry Redknapp has been bemoaning the fact in The News that we lost Yakubu, and that he was unable to get him back: ‘I bought him here. Then when I left they decided to sell him, which was a very clever move.
‘When I came back I was left with some other strikers who probably couldn’t have cleaned his boots.
‘Yakubu was fantastic for me when I had him. He got 19 goals the first year we went up. It’s not like he’s suddenly improved.
‘He’s a goalscorer, he’s strong, he’s a handful, very powerful and quick. He’s a great lad as well.
‘I could have brought him back if I had paid £12m. I really thought he would have ended up at about £8m and that was what I was waiting for.
‘People kept saying he wants to leave and Middlesbrough want to sell him and I thought he would be about £8m. I hung on, really, hoping that would be the case but it wasn’t.
‘He’s good value anyway because he’ll get goals. He’s a great signing for Everton’.
At the end of the day Redknapp left the club, what happened after was not good or clever but was pretty much inevitable anyway?
My own thinking is that even if Redknapp had not left us when he had we would have still lost Yakubu – and probably around the same time that we had anyway. He made it perfectly clear at the time he left he wanted to go, so it was not as if we could keep him even if we had wanted to at the time – this is not say we wanted him to go of course?
We all know what Yakubu can do, so lets not big him up anymore, he scored 2 goals yesterday but in many ways he did not win the game for Everton – yep, clearly he scored the goals that did – David Moyes making the tactical change that he did, when he did in bringing on Andrew Johnson and exploiting the shortcomings that have been exposed at the back in recent times won Everton the game, in many ways we helped make him look an even better player than he is.
In short Yakubu is a fantastic striker, we lost him – we would have anyway, we might have wanted him back – but did not get him back, so lets focus on who we do have. It is also time to stop detracting from the real truth of why we lost the Everton game, but at the same time it is time to draw a line under it and hopefully make some changes to kick on again, and we know where this begins next weekend?
PLAY UP POMPEY!
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