In discussing the nature of life as a top footballer, David James referred this week to the “Worzel Gummidge existence” that requires players to put on a different head as they adjust from the demands of their clubs to the calling of their country.

Gummidge, as any child who grew up in Britain in the late 1970s or early 1980s will tell you, was the eponymous hero of a television series about a tragicomic walking, talking scarecrow. He had four interchangeable heads, turnip, swede and so on, which would help him in certain eventualities: a thinking head, a brave head, a counting head and a clever head. At the time, it seemed to make sense.

No doubt James’s cultural references and indeed his philosophical ramblings are lost on some of his young England team-mates, but, for Emile Heskey, the idea of that “Worzel Gummidge existence” might just resonate. At club level he puts on an introspective head, struggling to be more than a bit-part player on the fringes of the Aston Villa team, but summon him for international duty, as Fabio Capello does unfailingly, and the striker is required to put on the head of a top-class striker, the fulcrum of England’s attacking play.

Heskey is an enigma. He always has been and always will be. Although Carlton Cole spent some of last night’s training session working alongside Wayne Rooney, the likelihood remains that Heskey will start England’s penultimate World Cup qualifying match against Ukraine in Dnipropetrovsk this evening and, more to the point, if the tournament started tomorrow, he would be among the first names on Capello’s team-sheet.

Back at Villa, though, he has started only one out of seven Barclays Premier League games this season, with the more mobile Gabriel Agbonlahor preferred as the lone striker and John Carew, so far at least, Martin O’Neill’s go-to guy when deviating from his favoured 4-5-1 formation.

Can Capello afford to go into the World Cup finals with an attack built around a player who is playing poorly or infrequently for his club team? The answer is complex, but it boils down to a yes. “He hasn’t played a lot of games, but there is some movement that he does when he plays in the national team, without the ball, that is important to us,” Capello said at the Dnipro Arena last night.

A personal hunch is that Heskey, if selected, will produce a performance against Ukraine this evening. It is based not so much on total faith in his ability or temperament but on a long-held theory that he seems to raise his game against combative, aggressive Eastern European opposition in hostile arenas where he might encounter racial abuse.

It is a theory that was reawakened by his remarkable performance for England in the 4-1 win away to Croatia at the Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb 13 months ago, but it has its roots in a night in October 2001 when he played a starring role for Liverpool against Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League, the first time an English team had beaten the Ukrainian club on home soil.

Phil Thompson, the former England captain and Liverpool’s assistant manager at the time, takes up the story. “There was a nasty and, dare I say, a racist undercurrent with the game,” he said. “Emile had to take a lot, not just from the terraces but on the pitch. Their defence kicked him from pillar to post. He was spat at by one of their players and he was slapped in the face by \ Holovko, who was banned for it, but Emile performed like a Trojan that night. He was absolutely fantastic.”

Was that a coincidence? Is there something in his psyche that makes him perform better when he is abused? “That was the thing that I noticed with Emile,” Thompson said. “If someone riled him and got him angry, he performed. It was like an affront to him. Off the pitch he is one of the nicest people in the game, a real gentleman, but in the case of that game and the way they were treating him, he rose to the challenge.”

Thompson’s memories about the undercurrent in Kiev are pertinent, given the threat of racism that hangs over the game in Dnipropetrovsk. “We hope it won’t happen, but being realistic, it has happened in Ukraine before,” Danny Lynch, of the Kick It Out anti-racism campaign, said yesterday. “We are aware that there is a problem. That area has form. The fans are a law unto themselves.”

It is one of the great contradictions about Heskey that hostility seems to bring the best out of him, yet, according to Thompson, he has a need to be loved. “He did go into his shell for a time when Gérard Houllier and I had him at Liverpool,” he said. “He’s very much a confidence player. When the supporters got on his back, his confidence suffered. He wants to be loved and wanted. I’m not saying for a minute that Martin O’Neill isn’t doing that, but Emile seems to have more confidence and look more comfortable when he’s with England.

“Emile works his socks off in that team — and the big thing is the word team. He makes it work. But I always think with Emile that if he was a more clinical finisher, he could have been one of the greatest centre forwards England have had.”

Thompson is right. But a goalscorer’s instinct and composure are two things that Heskey has simply never had. His record of seven goals in 56 international appearances is startlingly poor, but so is his record at club level, where he has scored twice in 21 appearances for Villa since his arrival from Wigan Athletic in January.

The counter-argument — and it is a compelling one — is that, if he is at his rampaging best, running forcefully into the channels, holding the ball up and occupying the opposing central defenders in a way that frees up space for Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard in particular, the goals will come from elsewhere, as they have done during this qualifying campaign.

But what if Heskey fails to reclaim his place in the Villa team and the confidence has drained from him by the time the World Cup begins in South Africa next summer? In Jermain Defoe, Capello already has a well-established Plan B when it comes to changing the approach mid-match, but he has not settled on a way to go into games without Heskey. For as long as the striker can keep wearing his international head — or, better still, according to Thompson, his angry head — then England will be in good shape, but the worry is that, as next summer draws closer, form or, for that matter, fitness might force a rethink.

Jermain Defoe
Age 27 Caps 34 Goals 11
Established as Fabio Capello’s Plan B with eight goals in his past ten international appearances, but it is instructive that six of those have come as a substitute. To start him ahead of Emile Heskey would involve a fundamentally different approach for the team and would involve Wayne Rooney taking a less liberated role than the one he has enjoyed under Capello.

Peter Crouch
Age 28 Caps 34 Goals 16
The most experienced alternative to Heskey as a target man, but his style in that role is so different that it would also require a different approach for the team. As with Defoe, he is a more technical player and a far more prolific goalscorer at international level, but he lacks Heskey’s ability to run the channels and to occupy defenders in a way that frees up Rooney and Steven Gerrard.

Carlton Cole
Age 25 Caps 4 Goals 0
The closest that England have to a Heskey clone and, on the basis of his early-season form for West Ham United, an increasingly credible alternative. He has something of Heskey’s power and strength and, importantly, he has pace and the ability to score goals. The question is whether he can do it at international level. Capello, an admirer, is keen to find out between now and June.

Gabriel Agbonlahor
Age 22 Caps 2 Goals 0
There are signs, as the Aston Villa forward approaches his 23rd birthday on Tuesday, that some of his raw edges are being smoothed. As well as his innate asset, his pace, the player has noticeably increased his upper-body strength and become more composed in his finishing. Back in the squad this time having lost his place after a substandard showing against Spain in the friendly match in Seville in February.