Everton hit Brann for six

12 April 2012

Everton cruised into the last 16 of the UEFA Cup with striker Ayegbeni Yakubu writing his name in the club's history books alongside Andy Gray and Alan Ball as they beat Brann 6-1 on the night and 8-1 on aggregate.

The Nigerian bagged a second hat-trick since joining the club - the first came against Fulham in the Barclays Premier League - to become only the third Everton player to hit a treble in Europe.

Gray managed the feat in 1985, 15 years after Ball, putting Yakubu in illustrious company on a night which also saw Andy Johnson score twice and Mikel Arteta net for the Toffees. Petter Vaagan Moen netted for the visitors.

Yakubu settled Everton's nerves after a shaky start when he curled home from 15 yards after Tim Cahill had created the chance.

Four minutes from the break the tie was all over when Johnson took a pass from Arteta, turned away from Hanstveit and drilled a low shot inside the far post.

It was 3-0 in the 54th minute when Steven Pienaar found Yakubu, whose sidestep wrong-footed two defenders and enabled him to place a 12-yard effort inside Hakon Opdal's left-hand post.

Brann deserved something for their efforts, and it came on the hour when Petter Vaagan Moen sent in a low free-kick from 25 yards that Phil Jagielka could have cleared - but he allowed the ball past him and Tim Howard reacted too late to stop it going in.

But Everton kept coming forward and they grabbed their fourth goal in the 71st minute when Arteta's 20-yarder clipped Azar Karadas, wrong-footed Opdal and went in off a post.

A minute later Yakubu completed his hat-trick when Pienaar's cross found him on the far post for an easy tap-in.

And Johnson completed the scoring in injury-time when he crashed home his second goal from 25 yards.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in