For want of a nail, goes the nursery rhyme, the shoe was lost. It all gets
away from them a bit after that. A horse, a rider, a battle, all lost, and
then finally, whoops, there goes the kingdom. All for the want of a
horseshoe nail is the solemn conclusion, although looking at the result of
this relatively minor technical oversight, one would have thought that there
were probably a range of other, contributing factors, not least that the
king's army would appear to consist of a single cavalryman, which is no way
to win a war of any description, even against Italy or the elite Republican
Guard.
The wider point, however, concerns consequences. It is a handy way of teaching
at an early age that every action has a corollary and that even the most
unthinkingly insignificant deed or oversight can set up a chain of events
that end in calamity. So take care in all you do, kids, and for heaven's
sake, think about stuff.
Straight-talking, self-made millionaires from t'North, such as Dave Whelan,
the chairman of Wigan Athletic, do not tend to pay much heed to the wisdom
of nursery rhymes, which is a pity, because Whelan could be about to make
one of those little mistakes with big consequences, although in his case
what is misguidedly considered a saving is not the loose change on the cost
of a nail, but somewhere in the region of four million quid.
Whelan spoke this week about selling Emile Heskey, the England striker, in the
January transfer window, rather than allowing him to run down his contract
and leave for gratis at the end of the season. “Emile is out of contract in
the summer, but he does not want to sign a new one,” Whelan said. “It could
cost us between £2million and £4million if that goes on, so we will have to
see what January brings.”
What January may well bring is a hard-bargaining reduced bid from Aston Villa,
where Martin O'Neill, Heskey's mentor at his first club, Leicester City, is
manager. This is not the big issue here, however. It is what May might bring
that should concern Whelan, for if Heskey is sold to recoup - split the
difference - £3million and Barclays Premier League status is subsequently
relinquished because Wigan have lost the player who made them tick, this
would be a bigger false economy than letting the kingdom go west for the
sake of a trip to the ironmongers.
Why all this fuss over a striker who does not score goals, it might be asked?
Heskey has only two this season, the first a meaningless fourth in the 5-0
massacre of Hull City, the second an extremely valuable injury-time winner
against Portsmouth that, in the Barclays Premier League's present truncated
state, is the difference between Wigan occupying eleventh spot and
fifteenth.
Yet, as ever with Heskey, it is not his goals that are crucial, but what he
brings to the team. He has been in the starting line-up for all of Wigan's
league wins this season, against Hull, Manchester City, Portsmouth, Everton
and West Bromwich Albion, and the two matches that he missed ended in a
defeat and a draw. Wigan did not play badly in either game, losing 3-2 to
Liverpool after conceding two late goals and drawing 2-2 against Newcastle
United, when Emmerson Boyce, their defender, was erroneously sent off, but
that is not the issue, either. Heskey is the type of player who gives his
team an edge through honest endeavour and, with age, a sharp football brain.
Without him Wigan do not function as effectively.
He is a woefully infrequent scorer for England, too, yet has been a feature in
a series of benchmark performances from Munich to Zagreb. He has the X
factor as a striking partner and in the half of the league in which Wigan
often dwell, a functioning forward line is the difference between staying up
and going down.
What makes Whelan's announcement so hasty is his margins, the possible
outcomes for his club. Say Heskey is sold in January for the figures
discussed. What could Wigan get for £4million, the top-dollar price, let
alone £2million, which is where the bidding will start? Nothing with
Heskey's talent, that is for sure. He cost more than that when he arrived
from Birmingham City more than two years ago.
Steve Bruce, the Wigan manager, uncovered another gem in Amr Zaki, his Egypt
striker, but selling Heskey would not give the club the funds to make Zaki's
loan transfer permanent, either. As it is, £4million is an optimistic
assessment of Heskey's value in a January sale. What if the best Wigan can
do is half that? Is it really worth destabilising the team for such an
inconsequential sum in Premier League terms?
Yes, there was a time when £2million would have meant something to Wigan, but
not in an era when Premier League existence is considered to be worth
£30million. Where is the business sense in taking a risk of £28million or
more, for the sake of one fourteenth of that?
It is rare to find a relegated club who are not also a selling one. West Ham
United evolved from being a club who kept their best players to one who
moved them on and, ultimately, paid the price. Wimbledon sold to survive,
with predictable results. These days the Coca-Cola Championship, plus the
top end of League One, largely comprises clubs whose squad took one hit too
many in the transfer market. Charlton Athletic did not recover from the loss
of Scott Parker and, later, Darren Bent, Reading were hurt by the departure
of Steve Sidwell, Leeds United plummeted after a fire sale.
Often, the selling process is inevitable given modern regulations governing
freedom of contract, but sometimes it is avoidable. Selling Heskey was
inevitable during his time with Leicester. He was young, ambitious and
Liverpool bid £11million, in 2000 an extraordinary amount of money. At
Wigan, in January, it is avoidable because the short-term benefits of
keeping him outweigh the need for a fast buck. Whelan may be a pragmatist,
but this is not a pragmatic decision. It is a big gamble for little gain.
This season, Villa have shown what can be achieved by refusing to chase the
money. There must have been many occasions during the saga of Gareth Barry's
proposed transfer to Liverpool when the easiest option would have been to
take what was on offer and be done.
Villa stayed strong. They placed a valuation on Barry that recognised his
international status ahead of Owen Hargreaves and Michael Carrick and
refused to budge. Liverpool, finances already stretched to the full, were
forced to walk away. It did not work out badly for them - Xabi Alonso stayed
and has been an outstanding performer in their rise to the top of the
Premier League - but it worked out equally well for Villa, who, with Barry
at the heart of midfield, have been empowered to make a serious assault on
the Champions League places.
Had Barry gone that would not have been possible. If Villa succeed in catching
Arsenal, a key factor will be the decision to make Barry stay. Who knows
what change in football's hierarchy might result from that single act?
Wigan are, sadly, not in the same position to build, or to play hardball with
the long-term capture of their best players. Heskey will no doubt go in the
summer, motivated by a last, lucrative pay day, although this could prove a
mistake because strikers with poor scoring records eventually become a
burden to any club chasing a big prize, no matter how useful their team
play.
Zaki is destined for the bigger time, too. He has been missing with injury of
late, but did enough in the early months of the season to indicate he could
be prolific given the right stage; Villa might have a mind to buy both and
keep the pair together, with Gabriel Agbonlahor in support. By June, Bruce
could need to find an entirely new front line and with Zaki a loan signing
and Heskey a free agent, would have to do so on a limited budget.
Perhaps it is this scenario that Whelan wishes to prevent. Yet the question
remains, what good is two million quid in these circumstances? All an early
sale would do is bring a crisis forward rather than prevent one. Worse, it
may advance a set of circumstances that could knock on beyond the loss of
Heskey.
Right now, Wigan look a reasonable Premier League team. In the past 12 months
they helped to deny Chelsea the title by drawing at Stamford Bridge and drew
at Anfield. On Saturday they visit Arsenal, where, despite a heavy Carling
Cup defeat last month, few would be truly shocked if they came away with a
point, given recent inconsistencies from Arsène Wenger's men.
If this good form evaporates with the sale of Heskey and Wigan slump back into
relegation contention or worse, it will not just be Zaki who comes under the
hammer in the summer. Players such as Wilson Palacios and Luis Antonio
Valencia are obvious targets for bigger clubs - Manchester United have
already been linked and that interest could be pursued. Bruce may decide he
is banging his head against a glass ceiling.
Given these factors, it will be devilishly hard to prevent the break-up of a
promising squad of players that, kept together, could inspire Wigan to the
sort of season once enjoyed by Bolton Wanderers under the management of Sam
Allardyce. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail; or, as it is known in
the Premier League in these inflationary times, between two and four million
quid.
