N’Zogbia Worth Much More At Wigan…

There used to be a consensus at F365 that Wigan chairman Dave Whelan was a publicity-hungry gobs***e. But it’s fair to say that the man has grown on us – selflessly spending vast amounts of money to achieve and maintain Premier League status with an unfashionable and unpopular club, vowing to stand by his manager in the face of relegation, allowing said manager to follow his ambition to a bigger club (such faith and generosity was heart-warmingly rewarded with loyalty by Roberto Martinez) and now, refusing to sell Charles N’Zogbia to Aston Villa for a reported £9m.

Having seen Villa pocket close to £40m for the sale of their two prize assets, Whelan will not allow them to take the Latics’ talismanic winger on the cheap. If Stewart Downing is worth £20m, Whelan is presumably saying behind closed doors, then N’Zogbia simply must be worth more than half that price – even taking into account the ridiculous premium on English footballers.

The Frenchman notched up nine goals and seven assists in the Premier League last season and – most crucially for Whelan – five of those goals came in the final six games of the season. To say that Wigan would be preparing to play Championship football this August without the efforts of N’Zogbia is no understatement. He is a match-winner, a game-changer, a season-saver. People tut and mutter about attitude and greed, but N’Zogbia has never seriously let down Wigan in two-and-a-half years – such judgements are based on hearsay or years-old tales from Newcastle.

Last summer Wigan accepted a bid of around £9m from Birmingham City for N’Zogbia. He failed to agree terms at St Andrew’s and returned to Lancashire to deliver the most consistent, most productive season of his career. Quite rightly, Whelan is not prepared to accept the same sum for a player who has clearly improved in terms of both maturity and delivery.

Too much is made of N’Zogbia entering the final year of his contract. What’s better for Wigan – getting £9m for their best player and then surrendering their Premier League status, or losing him for free after another year of survival? For a club of Wigan’s size, it’s a no-brainer. Unless they can collect what the player is worth, selling him to the highest bidder at a discount price is false economy. Having sold Wilson Palacios for £13m and Luis Antonio Valencia for £16m, Whelan knows that N’Zogbia’s price should be in the same ballpark.

Villa had to sell Ashley Young at a slightly discounted price because his availability might have been the difference between finishing eighth or 12th. Charles N’Zogbia could be – and indeed was – the difference between 16th and 19th for Wigan and that is worth far, far more than £9m. Kudos is due to Dave Whelan for thinking beyond balancing this summer’s books.