Everton's biggest signing played just one minute after dream start and injury nightmare

A decade on from his ‘dream debut’ Lacina Traore remains Everton’s biggest ever signing and he also boasts one of the best strike rates of all Blues players.

Dixie Dean of course is the most-prolific marksman in Everton history – or indeed the annals of any single English club with 383 goals from 433 matches. Dean, who also holds the record for most league goals in a single season having plundered 60 in 39 First Division games in 1927/28, is one of just eight men to break the century barrier for the club when it comes to scoring, followed by Graeme Sharp (160); Bob Latchford (138); Alex ‘Sandy’ Young – match-winner in the 1906 FA Cup final, not ‘The Golden Vision’ (127); Joe Royle (119); Roy Vernon (111); Dave Hickson (109) and Edgar Chadwick (104).

The Blues’ best goal-getter of the modern era is Romelu Lukaku who stands joint 16^th in the charts alongside the Alex Young of the 1960s, netting 87 in all competitions with a club record 68 coming in the Premier League. The Belgian international was a team-mate of Traore’s at Goodison Park but even he couldn’t match the towering Ivory Coast player’s ratio of a goal per 62 minutes.

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Unfortunately for Traore that’s because he ended up only playing little over an hour in an Everton shirt. Some 10 years ago today on February 16, 2014, with Lukaku sidelined through torn ankle ligaments, Traore was picked to lead the line for the Blues in their FA Cup fifth round tie against Swansea City at Goodison Park.

At 6ft 8in he was by far the tallest man ever to play for Everton, a good couple of inches above his closest challenger