Time for the Hulk to man up at Leeds
DURING his Leicester days, Emile Heskey was affectionately know as Bruno. Rarely has a nickname proved so inadvertently apt. Like Big Frank, Heskey was a Herculean specimen. Tall and broad, with a chest like a silverback and the bulging muscles of Predatorera Arnie.
Such superficial similarities were the genesis of the tag. Yet, as the rampaging bull of Filbert Street morphed into the leaden-footed lunk of Liverpool, deeper parallels emerged.
Just as Bruno suffered from a perceived lack of edge and aggression, so Heskey was viewed as a player who failed to make the most of nature’s gifts. A striker with the power and pace of a charging rhino but the killer instinct of a lemming.
Nagging
Harsh? Absolutely. This, after all, is a player who scored more than 100 Premier League goals, won seven major trophies and played in two World Cups for England.
Heskey’s achievements are beyond the dreams of all but the greatest and he certainly didn’t deserve the jokes and jibes that dogged his career to the bitter end.
Yet there always remained a nagging sense that so much had been left in the tank.
That he’d settled for being a high-class Geoff Horsfield when he could have been a cutrate Ronaldo.
Watching Heskey could be an exercise in frustration - and one that fans of Leeds United currently suffer on a weekly basis.
Chris Wood is a monster of a man. An inch taller than Heskey, equally stacked. When the Whites line up before kick-off, it looks like a bodybuilding imposter has crept into shot.
The 24-year-old looks for all the world like a custombuilt Championship striker, a latter-day Steve Howard programmed to bulldoze and destroy. That’s why, to date, he has changed hands for fees totalling £5m. Only, this particular model never quite does what it says on the tin. Yes, the Kiwi has good games. At Hillsborough last weekend, his cute one-two created the opener and his deft finish sealed a 2-0 win. Everyone from Mick McCarthy to Steve Evans has said that, given chances, Wood will find the net. A record of 73 goals in 249 games, 91 of them from the bench, suggest their faith is justified. But a player of Wood’s size and ability shouldn’t just be getting goals. He should be dominating, buccaneering, ploughing furrows through opposition lines. When Norwich were promoted to the Premier League under Paul Lambert in 2011, Grant Holt was their totem. Even when he wasn’t scoring, the Cumbrian was using his bulk to bully and batter, softening up centrehalves and winning free-kicks galore. Much the same can be said of Chris Martin, though the Derby striker’s effectiveness has waned as referees grow wise to his tricks.
Bristling
Wood, on the other hand, can lapse into passivity. Even in victory over Sheffield Wednesday, there were spells when he drifted out of the game, lost aerial challenges or was bundled off the ball by men a fraction of his size. The same thing happened at Leicester and West Brom. Once, this could be passed off as inexperience. Now, aged 24 and fully fit after a series of injury battles, it is time for Wood to become the aggressive, bristling spearhead Leeds so badly need. As with Heskey, it is impossible to watch Wood without feeling the handbrake is on. That somewhere inside that hulking body, there’s a Premier League player struggling to get out. That’s why it would be a dreadful shame if Wood settled for just being another lower league lump.