West Ham manager Alan Curbishley insists he has never seen the 'real' Dean Ashton following the striker's equaliser in the 1-1 draw at Everton.Two fine goals in two matches from the big forward is at last giving the Curbishley the opportunity to experience what all the fuss was about leading up to West Ham's FA Cup final appearance 22 months ago.

From that May date in Cardiff, Ashton has started just 18 matches for the Hammers, and missed all of last season after getting injured on England duty.

It has been a long route back and Curbishley believes only now is the 24 year-old getting anywhere close to his sharpest.

Ashton even missed the start of this campaign and suffered further extensive injuries mid-season.

But a quality strike last weekend against Blackburn and now the towering header which earned a deserve draw at Goodison Park has seen Ashton - who could have had a hat-trick against the Toffees - back to almost his best.

While Everton were seeing their hopes of a Champions League qualification take a serious blow, Curbishley was delighted with Ashton, as well as 18-year-old Freddie Sears.

"Ashton did well and took his goal excellently," said Curbishley, who offered a word of caution to Hammers fans.

"Everyone wants it straight away and he has had to get himself fit after a long time out.

"And when Ashton has been getting fit, I have had points to win to make sure we were safe so I've used him as a substitute a bit.

"But the last three games he has looked as sharp as I have seen him.

"Since I have been here I have hardly seen him at the level I was told he reached when he first came to the club.

"I have not really seen the real Dean Ashton, the one I was told was on fire before the injury that ruled him out for a complete season."

Vibrant youngster Sears, after his debut winner against Blackburn, almost did it again with a shot which rolled against a post in the final minutes at Goodison.

And the little and large pairing between him and Ashton looks good for the future.

Curbishley said: "Sears coming on also gave Dean a boost as the kid chased everything.

"Now Dean has seven games left this term and when he looks back at his season he may realise that he hasn't done that bad.

"He's been out a long while and had to get his fitness back from a bad injury while playing in the top flight. That's hard.

"There was some 'stick' from the fans but then we've all had that. That's the business we are in, he got stick, I got stick, everybody was getting it.

"But a couple of weeks ago he was back up front at Spurs, we were down to 10 men and losing and he charged around for 45 minutes and in many respects that did him a lot of good.

"He worked ever so hard in that performance, and then played well against Blackburn and scored. Now he has done it again and scored another goal.

"Now I want him to finish the season well, and let's hope he can get a full pre-season of training."

West Ham's response to three shocking 4-0 defeats in a week has been good performances against two sides above them in the table.

Goalkeeper Robert Green said: "We have had to show some character - and we have.

"When we went a quick goal down to Everton that was the time heads could have dropped but they didn't."

Everton looked to be cruising with an early Ayegbeni Yakubu strike and should have had a second when the Nigerian had another effort wrongly ruled out for offside.

That gave West Ham their chance to claw their way back into the game and they should have won it after the break.

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