Ten days short of his 28th birthday, Jason Roberts is beginning to lose count of the number of partners he has played alongside regularly enough to establish an on-field relationship.
Jamie Cureton was the first with whom it really clicked for the big, raw forward who had been rejected by Chelsea, gone part-time at Hayes, failed to make the breakthrough at Wolves and then, after a reviving spell on loan at Torquay, found himself under the able, if occasionally eccentric, care of Ian Holloway at Bristol Rovers.
Two years and almost 50 goals later, he teamed up with Lee Hughes at West Bromwich Albion, before moving to Wigan and establishing, with Nathan Ellington, what his manager, Paul Jewell, describes as as good a partnership as there has been at that level for many years.
Having expected to continue that partnership in the Premiership, Roberts got over his surprise when Ellington signed for West Brom, and he has set about developing an increasingly promising understanding with Henri Camara — before Camara’s departure for the African Nations Cup with Senegal.
“Put like that, it sounds as though I can only operate as one of a pair,” says Roberts. The alternative, and perhaps more obvious conclusion, is that he has become the sort of forward who can adapt his game to suit the strengths of different colleagues, while remaining effective in his own right.
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He has been more successful in the Premiership with Wigan than Ellington — the man with whom he propelled the Latics to promotion — has been with the Baggies.
Six goals in 20 appearances may not, on the face of it, be so much better than Ellington’s three in 17, but few could argue that Roberts’s all-round contribution has not been much the more effective.
He isn’t surprised that Ellington is taking time to make his mark. “It’s always tough going to a new club when they’ve spent a lot of money on you and there are a lot of expectations, whereas I’m settled and happy here, enjoying my football, very much playing for the team,” he says. “But you just have to remember what a contribution he made here at Wigan; arguably we wouldn ’t be where we are today without Nathan Ellington.
“If you ask me to compare the guys I’ve played with, Jamie had great goalscoring ability from anywhere on the pitch, Lee was pure enthusiasm, he just ran around like a madman for 90 minutes, but Nath has so much in his armoury. Good in the air, good left foot, good right foot, strong, quick — he’ll be a success at West Bromwich Albion, I’ve no doubt about that whatsoever.
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It helps that Roberts has three more years’ experience than his friend and former colleague, including a previous season in the Premiership with West Brom. That perspective helped him to adapt when Ellington decided that his Premiership future lay away from the JJB stadium, just as two years ago Roberts decided that his future lay away from The Hawthorns.
In Roberts’s case, a personality clash with Gary Megson, the Baggies manager at the time, was the main problem. “In the end, one of us had to go, and it was me,” says Roberts. “It happens, and not just in football.” (As for Ellington, Jewell was happy to say on Friday that he wishes he was still at Wigan, indicating that he never lost the confidence of his manager.) Having notched 59 goals in 130 league starts during Wigan’s rise from Division Two, including 24 last season, Ellington wanted to prove his Premiership mettle for the Latics. He says he was as surprised as anybody when he was informed that West Brom’s offer of £3m had been accepted and that he was on his way. It was only when Dave Whelan, the club chairman, said they had been disappointed with Ellington’s performances and commitment during the second half of the season that he began to understand why.
In an empty dressing room at West Brom’s training ground, Ellington explained that to have his commitment questioned had hurt. “In my first season at Wigan I kept dislocating my shoulder during games,” he says. “But I could get it back in by rolling on the floor, so I kept playing because we were going so well, and then I had it pinned at the end of the season.
“It was okay for a year, and then last season it started happening again because I hadn’t strengthened the muscles enough. Again it was important to keep going, but by the end it was popping out so easily I was playing with a strap around my body and the top part of my arm just to try to keep it in place.
“That affects your game, believe me, and maybe I’d have scored more goals if I hadn’t have the problem, but I didn’t think 24 was a bad return and the manager knew the truth, so to hear Mr Whelan’s comments was disappointing to say the least.”
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Ellington was also angered that Whelan had mentioned his decision to get married on the Friday before a game.
“It was a five-minute ceremony, the whole thing lasted about a quarter of an hour, and I don’t drink anyway,” he says. “They’d had three pretty good years out of me and I was at the stage when it was necessary to do what was right by Nathan Ellington. They didn’t agree; fair enough, time to move on. I’m still good mates with just about everybody up there, not just Jason.”
Those good mates include Jewell, whom Ellington readily credits for improving his all-round game after signing him for £1.2m from Bristol Rovers — another parallel with Roberts — where he scored 44 goals in 95 appearances.
“I’ve been pretty lucky with managers, because at Rovers I had Ian Holloway, then there was Paul, and now I’m working with Bryan Robson,” Ellington says. “If you can’t learn from those sort of guys, you’re in the wrong job.”
His readiness to listen and learn is one of the reasons he has made the progress that he has since being taken on by Walton & Hersham seven years ago. Like Roberts, he is relatively quiet and relaxed off the field — “I don’t get angry too often” — and has always made a point of seeking out more experienced players.
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“There’s no better teacher than someone who’s been there. When I was at Bristol I used to talk to Mark Walters. If he was prepared to pass on a few pointers, I wanted to hear them. You have to take your own decisions, but you’re more likely to get it right if you’re well-informed.”
That spirit prompted him to spend time as a teenager working at an accountancy firm. “It wasn’t that I’d any thoughts about being an accountant — I always wanted to be a footballer — but I thought it might be useful to get some sort of idea about how money really works,” he explains.
And did he? “Not really, I wasn’t there that long. Just long enough to make me even more determined to make it as a player.”
Back up in Wigan, Roberts muses about the time he spent as an export clerk in Feltham. “That was a very important time, because not only did I learn a bit about life, I started enjoying my football again,” he says. “You get to a certain age and think, ‘Okay, maybe it isn’t going to happen for me’.
“Something like that makes you more appreciative of opportunities like we have here at Wigan. I think you can see that in the performance of all the players here. But no matter what situation you’re in, when you’re a footballer you always want more.”
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After today’s game he will seek out his former strike partner, and the two will reminisce about the time they spent sharing a house. “We had some good fun, but he was a serious moaner,” recalls Roberts, laughing. “But then, being the older, I did make him do the washing-up.”
Ellington, who now has a young family of his own, remembers their domestic arrangements slightly differently: “We shared it out, like the good team we were. Yes, it’s strange how it’s worked out, but things move on — in life, as in football.”