Why Lucas Neill is the Dicko of Australian football

He was, of course, referring to my vitriolic essay on Brett Holman published on TWG back in June that garnered one of the biggest responses seen on this website for some time.

Then came the extraordinary outburst by Julian Dicks midweek in the English press, in which the former West Ham great raised the issue of Neill’s inflated sense of his own worth: “Is it me, or am I missing something here? He's 31. Hardly in his prime but he does a job at right back. He gives the team a bit of steel.

"He's an uncompromising figure and knows the Premier League very well. But he's 31! I am told he was offered a two or three-year deal with the Hammers on about £40,000 a week.

“The word is that he was on £75,000 a week and was obviously unhappy at the reduced wages. But, come on, £40,000 a week! It's time he showed the club a little loyalty.

"I can understand that every player must look out for himself financially and I know only too well that a career can be a short one but £40,000 a week for the next couple of years ain't bad, is it?

"I used to earn £650 a week and thought I was rich… Mr Neill needs to get a reality check.”

Indeed, Mr Dicks. Bravo. Well put.

So, withstanding my reluctance, it is perhaps appropriate to weigh in on this issue once again.

Neill needs to stop thinking he’s missing out on £35,000 a week and start thinking about what he’s really losing by carrying on with this game of brinkmanship: the respect of his teammates and the respect of fans, both at West Ham and back here in Australia.

With each passing day a little bit of Neill’s halo gets chipped off.

As Dicks rightly points out, he “does a job”. He’s not an Arshavin. He’s not a Drogba. He’s not a Terry or a Lampard. He’s Lucas Neill, a player without a club whose options have been to go to Sunderland or Galatasaray or stay at West Ham.

Hardly like having Réal Madrid, AC Milan and Barcelona in a scrap for your services.

And he’s not quite the immovable colossus of the Socceroos rearguard he perhaps likes to think he is. A few alternatives have stepped up in the past year, and most recently against the Republic of Ireland (a game that Neill sat out), to suggest he’s not entirely indispensable.

Neill’s hubris reminds me a bit of Ian “Dicko” Dickson, the self-regarding judge from Australian Idol who was lured away after two seasons at Ten for bigger money at Seven, then found life wasn’t all that great away from Idol and returned to Ten with his tail between his legs, a chastened and wiser man.

As Dicko told Andrew Denton on the ABC’s Enough Rope: “I probably believed my own hype far too much and overestimated my abilities… I know I’ve felt relief beyond words when I was able to go back to the comfort and safety of the role that I was known for and a role I still feel comfortable in… I felt a little bit shabby having gone away.”

The difference, of course, is Dicko had the humility to go back and admit he’d made a mistake. Whether Neill can do the same, and whether West Ham welcomes him back with open arms, remains to be seen.