Clarke: That’s why I signed Yak

Reading boss, Steve Clarke, has hailed the impact of his new signing Yakubu  Aiyegbeni on his team after his goal earned the Royals victory in the FA Cup fifth round against Derby on Saturday.

Yakubu scored his first goal for the Royals in the 68th minute after coming off from the bench to put Reading into the quarterfinals for only the fourth time in their 144 years of existence.

And who would blame Clarke for crowing.

“We knew what we were getting when we signed him, Yak’s a goalscorer and we brought him in for games like that, when it’s open and you know you’re going to create chances towards the end,” he said.

“It was a great pass from Hal, who also took his goal very well. You expect Yak to hit the target there, 9 times out of 10 he scores and thankfully us today was one of the 9.

“The goal was exactly why I put him on! He came on midweek, got a good introduction to the Championship when he took an elbow to the face and broke his nose! But we fixed him up and he still looks gorgeous! It’s not a surprise when he scores in that situation.”

Overall it was a good team display which Clarke readily acknowledged.

“First half Derby had a lot of the ball, much of it in their own half. They started well, Adam Federici made a really important save early on, that helped us find our feet,” he said.

“We created three excellent chances first half, had a big penalty shout and I was a bit disappointed to go in level. We’ve had a jinx recently playing against ten men, so we spoke at half time about doing it properly against a Derby side we knew would still cause us problems.

“We had a little blip going down to 1-1 but we didn’t panic. We’ve had three difficult away games in the cup but each time the fans have gone home happy which is a little bit of joy in a difficult season. We’d take anybody next – home or away. We look forward to the draw, but the game is three weeks away, we’ve got five league games before then, first of all Wigan on Tuesday.

“There’s still work to do in the Championship, we’re seven points off the bottom and we need to secure our position. The play-offs look too far, so we’ve given the supporters a run to the quarter final and it would be nice to go further.”