Heskey read to quit Villa in pursuit of W.Cup place

Emile Heskey is ready to quit Aston Villa in January in order to ensure he keeps his place in England’s starting line-up in the run-up to next year’s World Cup finals.

The striker has established himself as the first-choice partner for Wayne Rooney in the England attack, but is acutely aware that Fabio Capello wants all the players he takes to South Africa to be starting regularly for their clubs.

Heskey, signed from Wigan for 3.5 million pounds at the start of the year, has started just one Premier League match this season with Villa boss Martin O’Neill generally preferring Norway’s John Carew alongside Gabriel Agbonlahor.

“I’m happy to be playing for England and, obviously, not playing at club level is difficult,” Heskey said. “It’s something I will have to look at when I get back and try to address it.”

Asked whether that meant he would seek a move in the winter transfer window, the 31-year-old replied: “That’s what I mean. I will have to sit down and think about my next move. I don’t know whether I can get a World Cup place if I’m not playing for Villa.

“The manager hasn’t really spoken to me about it. I just have to keep performing well in training and keep going. But you always wonder about those kind of things, whether it will affect my chances. I will just have to try to address it when the time is right.”

Despite Heskey’s lack of game time with Villa, Capello has kept faith with him for England because he believes the forward’s physical presence and ability to hold the ball up creates space for his team-mates, most importantly Wayne Rooney.

After suffering a 1-0 defeat by Ukraine on Saturday — their first competitive loss under Capello — England will round off an otherwise immaculate qualifying campaign against Belarus on Wednesday.

With Rooney ruled out of the Wembley match by a calf injury, Capello will have the opportunity to see how England can cope without the Manchester United forward, whose outstanding performance in Dnipropetrovsk was described as “incredible” by the coach.

The most likely option involves Steven Gerrard being pushed forward into the second striker role in which he excelled for Liverpool last season.

Robert Green’s red card in Ukraine means the West Ham goalkeeper is suspended for the Belarus match. Manchester United’s Ben Foster has been added to the squad as cover but David James is expected to start on Wednesday.

Aston Villa midfielder James Milner meanwhile has claimed that England’s experience of playing with ten men for almost 80 minutes could prove useful in the future.

“Going down to 10 men is a learning curve especially with it happening so early in a match,” said Milner, who came on for Gerrard at half-time on Saturday.

“It might happen at some stage in the World Cup and it is about using that as an experience and learning from it. We did well with 10 men and were unlucky not to get something out of the game.”