The rumour has been floating around for several weeks and today gained extra momentum. Now those bastions of journalism, The Sun, are reporting it’s a done deal and Emile Heskey is on his way to Villa.

The talk all day has been about a £3.5 million fee and a 5 year contract. Heskey’s just turned 31, I’d like to think we wouldn’t give any 31 year old striker a 5 year contract. Surely that can’t be accurate?!?

I’ve never been Emile’s biggest fan, so I’m struggling to see the plus points to this news, if it does indeed turn out to be news. I suppose he’s got some decent experience, he’s worked with MON before so should settle in reasonably quickly. He’s available for the FA & UEFA Cups.

But it’s what he can do on the pitch that really counts and I really can’t see that he brings much to the party. For a start, we’re doing OK with 4-5-1 right now, so if Heskey’s on the pitch that’s got to mean that Sidwell isn’t, right?? Well, one of the midfield 5, but who wouldn’t put money on it being Sidwell to make room??

Maybe he’d be a back up option, someone to bring on when changes are needed. We have Harewood & Delfouneso in that role already, so they’d be knocked down the pecking order. Still I don’t really see anything substantial gained by doing this. John Carew is back in full training, so it hopefully shouldn’t be too long before we have our favourite big target man back.

The more I think about this the more puzzled it leaves me. However, should we find out tomorrow that Heskey has signed then I look forward to seeing what he can do for us. I’m sure MON has a very good plan in mind, perhaps he intends to turn Emile into a centre back, Dion Dublin style?!?

The one definitive positive that can be extracted is that we were apparently tussling with Liverpool to get Heskey. If we’ve won that race then that’s at least something we have over them!!