THE way Daniel Sturridge has taken his three goals since arriving on loan from Chelsea reminds me of John McGinlay, Andy Walker and Owen Coyle in their heyday.

In fact I’m starting to wonder whether he’s got Scottish ancestry.

The kid is a natural goalscorer, in the same mould as the tartan trio who used to score goals for fun when they played at Burnden Park in the 1990s.

You can’t teach those skills, a player either has the knack or he doesn’t and this boy has it in abundance. He’s right up there with the best of them.

These are players you can rely on to get you a goal, whatever is happening in a game.

And you rarely see them blasting shots from 30 yards – they sniff out chances instinctively and tend to pass the ball into the net.

Strikers of that calibre really are worth their weight in gold. That is why they change hands for such massive fees.

They need handling well, of course, and young Daniel could not be in better hands.

It was interesting to see Jack Wilshere at the game on Sunday. Jack’s is going to be a big player in the England set-up for many years to come and Owen Coyle deserves a lot of credit for that after the way he looked after him when he was here on loan from Arsenal last season.

I’m sure that would have had a big bearing on Carlo Ancelotti’s decision to send Daniel up here on loan to give him more games to help his development.

It’s no coincidence that two of the so-called Big Four clubs have put two of England’s most promising young talents under the care and guidance of a man who has a reputation as a manager, just as he had as a player, for wanting the game to be played as it should be played.

Jack appreciated what Bolton Wanderers did for him and that was why he took the trouble to come up from London to spend his day off here at the Reebok supporting his old team-mates.

I reckon that spoke volumes about this club and the principles that make it so special.

IT wasn’t nice seeing Zat Knight leaving the stadium on crutches on Sunday.

I felt for the lad when he got injured because he’s been brilliant for us this season, playing every minute of every game, and he must have been absolutely gutted as he was being stretchered off.

So I went to see him in the treatment room at half time to give him a bit of a pep talk. Not that he needed it. Zat’s a team player and all he was interested in was how the lads were going on. Take it from me, he might have been injured but he would have been delighted with the result.

And he would have been pleased to know that David Wheater had done well in his place alongside Gary Cahill who is going from strength to strength.

I was chuffed for young David who slotted in well and had a big part to play in helping keep that all-important clean sheet.

In fact the entire team did well to gain what was an excellent result that again showed how Owen Coyle has got the team and the club going in the right direction.

He’s got everybody playing with confidence. Take Paul Robinson, for instance.

He might come into the unsung hero category but he’s consistently been putting in some amazing performances in one of the less glamourous positions.

I call him Bulldog because he always goes out and plays with spirit – a true 100 per-center, not the fanciest player on the park but effective nonetheless.

With players like him in your squad, you are always going to have a chance.

I TEND not to talk about football with my dad because we always end up falling out – usually because he is right, even though I became the professional and he was just a decent amateur player.

But he is a very shrewd judge.

Actually, if I’d listened to him when I was a kid I would probably have played at a higher level than I did.

One thing I do remember that sticks in my mind is his first impression of a teenage Wayne Rooney.

“That kid plays ‘oller’ football,” was his expert assessment.

By way of explanation for anyone not brought in our neck of the woods “oller” refers to the hollow – a grassed area where as kids we’d play football morning, noon and night. You played for fun, free and easy, without fear and able to express yourself. You weren’t frightened to try anything.

And seeing the way Rooney scored that sensational goal in the Manchester derby on Saturday reminded me of my dad’s words so many years ago.

He’s still playing “oller” football, except that now he’s doing it in the Premier League.

WHILE I was made up for Owen Coyle and the lads on Sunday I felt for David Moyes – not because Everton lost but because the result gave the critics more ammunition to fire at him.

Having been brought up an Evertonian I still have a soft spot for the club and, for my money, Moyesie deserves to be knighted for what he has done for that club.

It’s a disgrace that people are giving him stick. And I say that not because he’s an old team-mate from our days together at Shrewsbury, but because I can see what a remarkable job he has done at Goodison Park on such a tight budget.

People in the game know what a good job he has done there and I’m sure he knows that himself.

He won’t let the pressure get to him though and, having spoken to him after the game, I can tell that he is the same sound bloke I knew as a player – salt of the earth, proud and determined.

He certainly won’t allow the critics to distract him.