Very Specific Football Question No.33: Is Wes Morgan superhuman or just hard?

By his own very high standards, this has probably not been Alexis Sanchez’s greatest season. It’s featured fewer goals, more injuries and a growing sense that he has been superseded by Mesut Ozil as Arsenal’s go-to guy.

Some have attributed this dip to fatigue. Sanchez led Chile to Copa America glory over the summer and, although he started the season on the Arsenal bench in order to recover from his South American exploits, he still had a shorter summer break than most of his Premier League peers. It’s perhaps natural that – despite Sanchez’s status as one of the league’s most indefatigable players - this season would not be quite as spectacular as the last.

Then there’s Wes Morgan.

The Leicester defender also participated in the Copa America, representing Jamaica, although the Reggae Boyz went out in the group stages so he only played three matches compared to Sanchez’s six.

But here’s the thing. No sooner had Jamaica’s involvement ended, they jetted off to the USA for the Concacaf Gold Cup. This time they reached the final, playing Costa Rica, Canada, El Salvador, Haiti and the hosts before eventually losing to Mexico, with Morgan appearing in every game.

Twelve days later, the Premier League season began – and the Foxes captain lined up to face Sunderland in a 4-2 victory that would set the tone for an incredible campaign.

Leicester have played another 31 league matches since then and – incredibly – Morgan has started every one.

In summary, Morgan had a 10-day break following Leicester’s final match of the 2014/15 season before flying to Chile with the Jamaica squad, then roughly a week off between the Copa America and the Gold Cup, then another few days’ rest between the Gold Cup and the start of the season.

In other words, he has had about three weeks’ rest in the last two years – and the most remarkable part is that Morgan’s amazing feat of human endurance has coincided with him displaying the best form of his long career.

For one, this somewhat debunks the notion that footballers need a break at all. Maybe it’s a myth they have perpetuated just so they can have longer holidays in Dubai.

But also, the centre-back’s unparalleled stamina gives rise to a couple of burning questions.

Principally: is Wes Morgan an extra-terrestrial?

Some believe that the Championship footballer formerly known as Wes Morgan was abducted by aliens around the time of the Foxes’ miraculous escape from relegation last season, and that the humanoid currently marshalling Leicester’s back-line is in fact a completely distinct lifeform - crafted in outer space and designed to repeatedly hoof the ball into touch and play percentage football to absolute perfection.

While this sounds quite feasible based on Morgan’s ludicrous appearance record and sudden surge in ability, a closer look at Morgan’s career history indicates that his superhuman qualities are - in fact - nothing new.

Since breaking into the Nottingham Forest team as a 19-year-old, Morgan has been a virtual ever-present in all 12 seasons since. He has played at least 40 games in every campaign, without ever suffering an injury that has kept him out for more than a handful of matches. In the past four seasons, he has missed just three leagues games.

This is a man who basically does not need a rest.

Which, if he is not an alien, begs another question: is Wes Morgan Britain’s hardest footballer?

There is a body of evidence which suggests that he might be.

Brought up in the Meadows, a rough part of Nottingham notorious for gun crime and gangs, Morgan was known to hang around with some dodgy characters in his youth.

But instead of becoming some kind of Midlands streets ruffian, he decided to use his nightclub bouncer physique to outmuscle strikers instead.

Morgan is not a hardman in the traditional sense like Vinnie Jones or Phil Mitchell – he has only picked up two yellow cards all season – but rather he exudes a brooding, no-nonsense presence on the field.

Morgan doesn’t prove his hardness by fouling people; he does it by turning up and relentlessly playing football in the simplest of manners - again and again and again and again - without ever complaining. This constitutes the hardest man of all.

Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri revealed after Morgan scored the winning goal against Southampton last weekend that the player had been ill in the run-up to the game. Not that it had any effect.

“He’s strong. The cold passed through him so many times,” said the Italian in typically enigmatic style.

Illness, tiredness or injury may knock the likes of Alexis Sanchez out of their stride, but it will evidently take more than a bout of man flu to stop Morgan. At this stage, it’s difficult to see if anything or anyone will stop him. Or indeed, if he will ever take a break from football again.

Jamaica have a few Copa America qualifiers coming up in June, but after that Morgan’s fixture list is bare. He’ll probably spend July bench-pressing cars.

While the suggestion that Morgan’s powers have been acquired through alien intervention is an alluring one, it’s actually more impressive to think that he done it all on his own.

Having said that, the most astonishing part of Morgan’s season is not that he has played so many games, but that he has somehow been transformed from an average player into a phenomenal one, which is why the extra-terrestrial theory can’t be completely ruled out.

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