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WHERE'S YAKUBU'S SMILE GONE? 24-4-06
The transfer of Yakubu from Portsmouth to Middlesbrough initially seemed a puzzling one. At first glance, Middlesbrough appeared not to require another striker. After all, Steve McClaren's side had finished the league season as fourth highest scorers, largely because of the hugely productive partnership that recent additions Mark Viduka and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink had forged.
However, with Hasselbaink's years and Viduka's swivelling playing style taking their toll, neither player managed to stay at peak fitness in the crucial late stages of the season. In the Uefa Cup, Middlesbrough had begun the critical second-leg of the Sporting Lisbon tie with Szilard Nemeth partnering Joseph Job up front.
Having failed to lure Yakubu to Teesside the previous summer, Steve McClaren finally got his man on 4th July 2005 and the Nigerian centre-forward moved to Middlesbrough from Portsmouth for £7.5 million. Given that Middlesbrough desperately needed a new central midfielder to replace the departing Boudewijn Zenden, many fans were bemused at what was seemed an as an extraneous purchase.
They needn't have worried about Yakubu proving his worth. After drawing a blank in his first three games, Yakubu netted his first Boro goal at The Riverside in an impressive 2-1 win against Arsenal. Buoyed by that strike, Yakubu followed up with four more in his next four league games and his impressive form continued throughout the winter months as he found himself on the scoresheet in Boro's most rousing wins of the season, against Manchester United, Chelsea and AS Roma.
Until his last goal - the winning penalty against AS Roma - he had notched up eighteen goals in thirty-seven matches, a strike-rate comparable with that he garnered at Portsmouth (forty-three goals in ninety-two appearances) and the thirty-nine goals in seventy games for Israeli side, Maccabi Haifa. With each passing goal, Yakubu's infectious smile grew wider and wider. Compared to the occasionally surly Viduka and Hasselbaink, Yakubu's form and demeanour were a revelation.
But that smile has dulled to a sullen glower as Yakubu has now netted just once in his last fifteen appearances. Of course, Hasselbaink, Viduka and Yakubu have had to deal with a degree of squad rotation in recent weeks, but it is Yakubu who has been hurt the most by spells on the substitutes' bench. Since the Roma victory, Hasselbaink and Viduka both have six goals, despite each playing three games fewer than Yakubu.
With neither Massimo Maccarone nor Malcolm Christie ready to break into Boro's premier striking triumvirate, Yakubu's position in the squad is yet to be questioned, but with each passing game that he fails to hit the net (twelve and counting), the question gets louder. What is up with Yakubu?
McClaren hasn't felt it necessary to comment publicly on the scarcity of Yakubu's goals, but privately it must concern him. There's certainly a case that Yakubu is merely feeling the ill effects of a long, arduous season, where he has played in fifty-two of Middlesbrough's fifty-eight games (by contrast, Viduka and Hasselbaink have only played in forty-one each), but his overall work rate is still high.
His measured through-ball for Viduka's second against FC Basel and his cross for Parnaby's winner at home to Bolton are evidence that Yakubu remains heavily involved in Middlesbrough's attacking play. Yet, Yakubu doesn't look like a man enjoying his football.
Earlier in the season, Yakubu could be relied upon to gallop to Boro's rescue when the team were up against it. His sublime double against Preston North End and his opener against FC Dnipro hauled Middlesbrough onto the path to two semi-finals. Now it is Mark Viduka that Steve McClaren turns to whenever his team need a goal.
While Viduka and Hasselbaink have both responded positively to being rotated, Yakubu, eleven years Hasselbaink's junior and seven years younger than Viduka, doesn't appear to have taken well to the questioning of his position as Boro's main man. Indeed, wherever Yakubu has succeeded, he's been the principal, and more often that not, the only striker. Despite occasional assistance from Lomana Tresor Lua Lua whilst at Portsmouth, and West Ham's Yossi Benayoun during their stint together at Maccabi Haifa, the Nigerian's record proves that he works best in isolation. But to suggest that Yakubu's poor form has been caused by tiredness or his rotation from the first-team is to ignore an important point, because there is another troubling feature of Yakubu's game that could be responsible for his current drought.
Yakubu relies heavily on the left flank as the starting point for his dynamic thrusts into the opposition's eighteen-yard box. Once that area becomes occupied by a team mate, the threat Yakubu poses is reduced. While it didn't seem ideal at the time, McClaren's decision earlier in the season to field Franck Queudrue and Emanuel Pogatetz as a nominal left-sided combination was affording Yakubu the space to create his own chances.
The return to fitness of a player with Stewart Downing's crossing ability would be a cause of celebration for most strikers, but not so for Yakubu. He forages most effectively on the left-wing and it's no coincidence that fifteen of his nineteen goals have come without Downing in the side. The left-winger is simply getting in Yakubu's way.
The marriage of an alacritous winger and a strong striker with great keenness and anticipation should be a happy one. McClaren, however, will find little solace in such an empty platitude as long as his £7.5 million striker is misfiring so badly. After all, with Mark Viduka struggling for fitness ahead of Thursday's clash with Steaua Bucharest, the onus will be on Yakubu to find his smile and fire Boro into the Uefa Cup Final.
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