So now we know why Mons Ivar Mjelde, the Brann coach, was so dismissive of his team’s chances. Everton’s fine season gathered further momentum last night as they brushed aside the Norwegian champions with a swagger befitting a team with designs on winning the Uefa Cup. It was the club’s record win in European competition.

Yakubu Ayegbeni incurred the wrath of David Moyes when he was fined £80,000 as punishment for returning late from the African Cup of Nations, but the Nigeria striker took a few giant strides towards redemption with the second hat-trick of his Everton career while Andrew Johnson, who has been unable to hit a barn door for most of this season, claimed two goals that will do wonders for his confidence. Mikel Arteta scored the other with a deflected shot.

Everton will now travel to Florence to face Fiorentina in the first leg of their round-of-16 tie on March 6, but while the Italian team, at present fourth in Serie A, will provide stiffer opposition than Brann, Moyes’s men will have nothing to fear on this form.

Mjelde had professed that it was pointless trying to believe that his team could qualify and when Everton took a 2-0 lead into the interval, the tie was as good as over. Yakubu can be an infuriating player, but, on his day, there are few better finishers around. This was one of those occasions. The Nigeria striker broke the deadlock in the 36th minute when he fizzed a shot into the corner of the net, although it was his second and Everton’s third that had Moyes cooing.

Collecting Steven Pienaar’s pass, Yakubu shaped to shoot before cutting inside, sending two Brann defenders, in the words of Moyes, “for a pie and a Bovril” in the process, before rolling the ball home. His third, a simple finish from Pienaar’s cross in the 72nd minute after Brann had scored a consolation with a speculative free kick by Petter Vaagan Moen, took his tally for the season to 15.

“If he is only 25 — a Nigerian 25 — if that is right, you would have to say he has a few years ahead of him,” Moyes, alluding in jest to the uncertainty surrounding Yakubu’s age, said.

As buoyed as he was by Yakubu’s performance, though, Moyes was equally encouraged to see Johnson back on the scoresheet. The forward’s first, a drilled finish four minutes before half-time, was his first goal at Goodison Park in a match he had started for almost a year, although it was his second and Everton’s final goal, a 20-yard bullet, that hinted at a brighter future.

Everton (4-4-2): T Howard – P Neville, P Jagielka, J Lescott, N Valente – M Arteta, T Cahill (sub: M Fernandes, 46min), L Carsley (sub: A Hibbert, 46), S Pienaar – A Johnson, Yakubu Ayegbeni. Substitutes not used: S Wessels, L Baines, J Vaughan, L Osman, V Anichebe. Booked: Fernandes.

Brann (4-4-2): H Opdal – B Dahl, O Bjarnason (sub: A Karadas, 65), K Sigurdsson, E Hanstveit – J Gunnar Solli, E Bakke, H El-Fakiri (sub: E Huseklepp, 61), P Vaagan Moen – T Helstad, N Demba-Nyrén (sub: R Winters, 71). Substitutes not used: N Udjus, C Guntveit, G Einarsson, M Thwaite. Booked: Bakke.

Referee: N Ivanov (Russia).