Jagielka banishes doubters

PHIL JAGIELKA played everywhere for Sheffield United.

He even famously went in goal once and steered his team to victory against Arsenal following an injury to regular goalkeeper Paddy Kenny. Yet having exchanged Bramall Lane for Goodison Park last summer in a €6million transfer, the 25-year-old found it almost impossible to secure a position of any kind in David Moyes’s first-team at Everton as his big move appeared to be going sour before he even had the opportunity to show just what Moyes had bought for his substantial outlay.

So his match-winning interventions against Reading in scoring the breakthrough goal and then preventing an almost certain equaliser at the other end represented the high watermark in Jagielka’s brief Everton career.