Pleasure Beach No More: Who are you and what have you done with Wes Morgan?

Blackpool in January can be a grim place. The beach stretches witheringly to the horizon in shades of ashen grey, seagulls circle like vultures, and the illuminations lie dormant like the exhausted funeral pyres of an ancient race of mythical giants.

Pensioners shuffle down antiquated high streets, shopping trollies dragged faithfully in their wake, bracing wizened faces against the howling fury of a coastal gale. The pier is empty, the amusements clatter with the promise of copper in a gaudy neon boondoggle, and the air is biting and bitter.

My being in the Las Vegas of the North immediately after Christmas, working an internship and spending my nights holed up in a B&B like a tragic Partridge wannabe, is not entirely relevant to this article, but it taught me one important thing.

Blackpool is a wonderland no more. Today, tired and overcast, it is a far cry from the town of yesteryear. The images that spring to mind of sandcastles and 99s, of candy floss and merry-go-rounds, have mostly gone. Where they do remain, they persist out of habit rather than success.

The same could be said of Wes Morgan. The merest mention of his name elicits apparitions of that glorious Saturday evening in May 2016 when, after months of teasing the impossible, Leicester City were crowned Premier League champions.

Sunlight streams down, speckled with royal blue confetti as if God himself was a Fox, Andrea Bocelli belts out Nessun Dorma while Claudio Ranieri shuffles around oozing timid suaveness, and amongst it all, central to this absurdist Renaissance mural, stands Westley Nathan Morgan, arms like steel girders held aloft in disbelieving elation, the golden crown of the Premier League trophy levitating high above his head in confirmation of a universally accepted truth – Morgan was king of the King Power and this was his coronation.

Fast forward three and a bit years and, much like Blackpool, things aren’t what they used to be. The gleam of that Leicester title win, as likely as Elvis being found alive or Barack Obama representing England in cricket, according to bookmakers, will never properly wear off. Future generations will badger us enviously to recite yarns of Christian Fuchs’ long throws, N’golo Kante will, in all likelihood, be awarded a Nobel Peace prize at some point, and Jamie Vardy’s kitchen will be committed to the history textbooks alongside Tiananmen Square and Wounded Knee as an arena of great significance. But as with all historical events, greatness does not render the perpetrators infallible.

As time has passed, and as the equilibrium of English football has slowly been restored, elements of doubt, largely unmentioned harum-scarum moments of shakiness and rustiness, have crept into Morgan’s game.

By no means is the centre-half a liability, nor is it necessarily the case that the glue factory beckons, but on occasion, in recent times, the big man, who regularly dresses up as a pirate to promote spiced rum, has looked as if his legs are made of wood.

Interesting aside, Wes has the power to walk into any public house in England and order a full round of Morgan’s and Coke for everybody in attendance, whenever he likes.

Claude Puel’s boys have been hit and miss so far this season, but when they’ve been good they’ve been, to their credit, very good. Eking out wins over the Wolves and Southamptons of this world is a must for a team with the Foxes’ ambitions of higher mediocrity, but equally, losing to sides like Everton and Bournemouth, more so the latter, will stunt any aspirations of making that leap into ‘best of the rest’ territory.

In both of those matches, Morgan was dismissed with a sizeable chunk of proceedings left to play. Both dismissals were needless – reprisals doled out for accumulations of late nicks and clumsy interventions against players who, honestly, just looked sharper and nippier than the hulking defender. Morgan seeing red may not have been the sole proprietor of the Foxes’ defeats on either occasion, but neither did it help matters.

Alongside Morgan, Leicester have invested spiffingly in national hero and amateur inflatable-unicorn-tamer, Harry Maguire. Ol’ Slabhead is a thoroughly modern centre-half – comfortable in possession, brutish when required, composed no matter what. Increasingly, however, he serves as an awkward reminder of his captain’s mounting indiscretions. He is fast becoming the Simon to Morgan’s Garfunkel, the Angel to his Butterman.

This is no slight on Wes. Maguire is a bloody good footballer, with an unnatural self-assurance on the ball and a really big head. Most centre-backs pale in comparison to him, especially at clubs jostling for mid-table anonymity. Ultimately, however, Maguire’s preciousness highlights an uncomfortable truth for Leicester City fans – Wes Morgan is not immortal.

At 34, their captain and leader is hardly Methuselah, but nor is he the proverbial spring chicken, and with every passing week the sneaking suspicion that Morgan’s time at the very top of the professional game may be on the wane grows a little more. As sad as it might be, time waits for no man, not even Premier League champions.

The roots of Morgan’s apparent slump may delve a little deeper than the relentless march of time, however. That magical season when he lifted the Premier League trophy, for all its miraculous wonder, made a rod for the defender’s back. The entire campaign was built on a foundation of wild overachievement. With the exception of World Cup winner N’golo Kante, not a single member of that title-winning side, Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez included, have managed to reach the heights of those performances again. Some have come closer than others, and the aforementioned Vardy and Mahrez, as well as Kasper Schmeichel, have managed to emulate their feats with decent regularity, but in terms of sustained sporting greatness, all except Kante have fallen short.

The issue for Morgan, however, is that the residue of expectation remains. It’s the belief that Claudio Ranieri’s squad were a side of ordinary superheroes, hiding in plain sight all along, that got Danny Drinkwater a move to Chelsea’s Reserves and that saw Jamie Vardy briefly linked with Atletico Madrid.

The reality is altogether more humdrum. Leicester were just a remarkable team, an illustration in the power of self-belief and hard graft. The wave of hysteria that swept the nation was justified, as were the plaudits lavished on every single player who featured that season, but in the grand scheme of things, has there been anything in the past three years to justify Harry Redknapp’s claim that Morgan was robbed of an England career? Probably not. (That question was a joke by the way, don’t go batshit in the comments).

Wes Morgan was outstanding for one season and unfairly got lumped in with the best players in the Premier League, but The Darkness had one great album and nobody’s calling for them to headline Glastonbury. If Morgan’s time is coming to an end, and god knows, after everything he’s achieved, there’d be no shame in it if it is, then the best thing for Leicester to do would be to move on and recruit a replacement quickly, rather than letting their greatest-ever captain disintegrate into calamity. Ask John O’Shea.

Then at least, with a more senior role and a less intensive schedule, Morgan could wind down a career that has taken him far beyond all expectation with dignity and his mammoth reputation still intact.

In years to come, when people recount tales of Leicester City’s inconceivable title-winning squad, let’s hope, for all our sakes, but mostly for his, that Wes Morgan is remembered with fondness as the goliath he was for nine incomprehensible months, and not as a star who faded with ignominy.

Don’t let Wes Morgan become a Blackpool.