Will be an important analysis of his progression (or lack thereof) as an Everton player against Swansea in 10 hours' time. If we're being honest he has been as unlucky as he has been blameworthy for his own admittedly dismal record of appearences. Alot of the time he gets injured - I think that is the main source of alot of our frustration, certainly mine - but also he has had to deal with things like Kevin Nolan nearly chopping him in half when he was getting a run in the team at Newcastle a few years back, and the fact we play with one up front. Enough excuses though, because more than anything, he just hasn't been good enough to get a run in the team. He can score all the tap-ins he likes, but until his link up play improves, he will never be near enough to the first team. He is sorely lacking in this area, whereas Jelavic is a livewire with masterful technical ability and innate positional sense.
Is it too late to say Victor could learn from him? 24, he can't keep the 'youngster' tag going forever. I remember him making his debut, and it seems like an age ago - Duncan and Big Nige were still playing, for christ's sake - he's got to show a drastic improvement in his all round game.
I think that's why he was so happy with his goal against Newcastle. It was a goal of real quality, it was difficult to pull off. It was something he was rightly proud of, not to mention the fact it was 85 minutes in and it was of huge importance. You could see him doing his best 'Le Sulk' impression (along with his suspiciously frequent injuries, his tendency for self-pity is another thing that appears to grind most of us) last year when he was scoring. Bemusing though it was to see a player shrug off a goal, he knew that profitting solely from the work of players around him, getting lucky breaks or scrambling in dodgy goals wasn't enough, and nor should it be. Today's strikers need to be of the Jelavic mould: team players who can still be man of the match contenders without even getting on the scoresheet. Victor can only be defined from a solitary perpsective: goalscoring. It's not enough.
Interesting to see how he performs tomorrow.
