When people talk about David Moyes’ best purchases, they usually refer to Tim Cahill, Mikel Arteta, Yakubu, Joleon Lescott etc. However, should Phil Jagielka be mentioned in the same breath as these players?

When he eventually arrived in July for a fee of £4 million after lengthy transfer negotiations few people expected him to be a key part of the team this season, more like another Phil Neville, an honest professional who could cover a variety of positions – which to be fair, he is. However, there is much more to his game than just being a cover man.

Prior to Joseph Yobo’s departure to the Africa Nations Cup, there were fears about who would take his place for the fixtures during that period. However, they proved needless – Jagielka filled the void brilliantly, and has since proved, in my opinion, to be a better defender than his Nigerian team-mate.

His tackling, blocking, interceptions and reading of the game – all of them are superb. I’ve lost count of the number of times he’s made a vital interception to a through ball, or made a perfectly timed tackle on a striker through on goal (Nicholas Anelka for Bolton at Goodison springs to mind). I believe that he has the beating of Yobo in all of the aforementioned areas, and should be Joleon Lescott’s long-term partner in the centre of our defence. Quite frankly, Yobo’s little dizzy wanders out wide that lead to him losing the ball are nothing short of infuriating.

Admittedly, his early season form was poor, but he was not being played in his preferred role – he was being shunted around from right back to defensive midfield and wasn’t able to put together a good run of games. When the ANC allowed him to do that, he showed his quality very quickly.

Some critics will point to his ‘poor distribution’ as reason to believe that Yobo deserves the place in the team more – however, you cannot finger-point when it comes to ‘hoofing’; all of our defenders are guilty of it, it is a tactic that needs to be eliminated from our game. Besides, what else is he supposed to do when the midfield is so often really poor and certain players (naming no names Mr. Carsley) don’t appear to want the ball?

How Fabio Capello has overlooked Jagielka for a place in the England squad is beyond me, he is far superior to players like Matthew Upson and Curtis Davies. In my opinion he has been one of David Moyes’ most astute buys and I’m becoming increasingly convinced that he’s future captain material. Next season I really hope that him and Lescott are our preferred pairing, I believe it could become on of the best defensive partnerships in the league, and apart from anything else Leighton Baines must also be given a proper chance to flourish – it certainly worked wonders for Jagielka