BRINGING back players who were discarded in the past is always a risky business in football – but one Liverpool should take with Emile Heskey.

Wigan already seem resigned to him leaving and pursuing his dream of returning to Champions League football and making England’s squad for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

And that is why Liverpool should find a way of doing whatever is necessary to tempt Heskey back to Anfield.

Let’s face it, that’s not really too much is it? Both terms of persuading him to return and coughing up the cash to make it happen.

The player has already hinted he would love to go back and why wouldn’t he? He has unfinished business here because he never had the opportunity to convince Rafael Benitez he was worthy of a place.

And when you think that Djibril Cisse, Milan Baros, Neil Mellor and Florent Sinama-Pongolle were all given chances in Benitez’s first season, then his offloading to Birmingham City seems even more hasty now.

It’s not as if buying Heskey would break the bank either.

Wigan chairman Dave Whelan is a businessman and knows it will be a bad move if Heskey is allowed to walk away at the end of the season when his contract runs out.

Why risk that when he’s already going misty-eyed at the thought of bearing down on the Kop end in red shirt once again?