Source: Daily_Mail
Saha: From sicknote to superstriker - how Everton are getting the best out of an enigmatic striker
Louis Saha, hugely relieved at finally being able to reel off successive appearances without succumbing to injury, listed all the parts of his anatomy that once troubled him but that are now able to withstand the rigours of top-flight football.
He missed one out, and, by common consent, it was the most important of all. His mind. David Moyes has worked on it relentlessly over the past 13 months and has finally succeeded in restoring his self-belief to a level that captured the attention of Sir Alex Ferguson some years ago.
Sharing a pot of tea with former Everton manager Walter Smith at Manchester United's training ground , Ferguson challenged his close friend to identify the one striker he would most like to see at Old Trafford.
Each name from a who's who of global greats met with a shake of the head, until a chortling Ferguson ended the guessing game by announcing: 'If I could have one striker in the world, it would be Louis Saha.'
The United manager soon changed his tune after paying Fulham £12.8million to have his wish granted and seeing Saha's quicksilver skills gradually nullified by an alarming propensity for picking up injuries.
After four-and-a-half years, he had seen enough to write off almost his entire outlay and allow Saha to join Everton for next to nothing. As he did so, he is believed to have ventured the opinion that a vast range of ailments could all be traced back to the same source. In Ferguson' s v i e w, the France forward's fragile mental state was at least instrumental in the amount of time spent on the sidelines.
There is little in life, let alone football, that can surprise Ferguson at his age, but he may well be taken aback at the way Saha has cast aside his shackles this season and been a virtual ever-present, scoring six goals into the bargain.
The rejuvenated marksman could have been plying his trade in Turkey but for Everton rejecting an £8m bid from Galatasaray in the summer.
It would have represented a tidy profit, but Moyes was not interested after going to work on the Saha psyche from day one.
The 31-year-old had still to locate his dressing-room peg when one of Everton's backroom staff told him: 'We've signed a £30m striker for nothing and you are going to prove it.'
Louis Saha - Newcastle United
Louis Saha
saha
Despair of a journeyman: on loan at Newcastle in 1999, with Fulham five
years later, then at Manchester United in 2006
The club's medical experts played their part by adopting a different approach from the barely concealed frustration at Old Trafford that eventually left a despairing Saha believing every minor niggle was the precursor to another lengthy lay-off.
Physio Mick Rathbone and his team set about convincing him minor mishaps were an occupational hazard that could be remedied in no time, and Saha's self-esteem, at an all-time low near the end of his United career, began to pick up.
The transformation in his entire persona is such that he now spends international breaks being put through his paces at a private fitness centre in France to ensure his once-suspect durability remains at its peak.
Assistant manager Steve Round echoed Moyes' belief that stretching him physically has helped Saha emerge from his injury nightmare, saying: 'He is out there training every day and it has been noticeable, going back to the last three months of last season, that he has developed a capacity for extra work. He trains before and after the other players and when the international boys are away he heads to this training camp in France for four or five days with a fitness specialist.
'It was his idea and it just shows how much he wants to stay at the level he's at.
'I don't think he knew what had hit him when we went away pre-season. He was running round a golf course at 7.30 in the morning as the first of four sessions each day. There was never a murmur of complaint. There is a real resolve about him to make an impact at the highest level.'
The new-look Saha is down to more than just a gruelling workload, though . Many believe he suffered from the sink-orswim attitude at United, whereas Moyes and even the rest of Everton's players have been more than happy to provide the reassurance he evidently needs.
His team-mates revere him and call him King Louis, while Moyes provides constant reminders of how many a sound judge, himself included, believes there is no better centre forward around.
He is beginning to take it on board and believe it himself, even if he didn't to begin with. Those who know him say he has never been happier and feels trusted and valued in a way he desperately wants to repay. The lethal touch that has spearheaded Everton's recent revival suggests that Moyes is already collecting.
