Andy Fifield

KEVIN DOYLE has a decision to make, although from the outside it looks like the kind of 'heads-you-win-tails-I-lose' scenario that faced Odysseus as he confronted Scylla and Charybdis on his way back from Troy. 
Does he throw himself to the Wolves and condemn himself to a season of suffering at the sharp end of the Premier League, or decide to rest among the dead men in the Championship with Reading, a club in meltdown? Either way, there is a good chance Doyle's career will be chewed up and spat out like so much Ithacan driftwood.
 Doyle is not the only footballer faced with tough choices this summer, but his predicament is especially poignant.  Rewind a year and the Republic of Ireland striker was faced with altogether more appealing prospects. Two impressive seasons in the top flight - including one prolific campaign in 2006-07 - had made him coveted by Aston Villa, among others, while Reading were so desperate to keep him that they thought nothing of handing him a bumper new contract in November.
 Then everything went wrong, and horribly so. Doyle scored just two goals after Christmas, Reading's form collapsed with him and suddenly his options shrunk. Villa decided to look elsewhere and now Wolves appear to be his only route back to the Premier League land of plenty.
It is a chastening tale, and helps justify why players are more eager than ever to abandon the principles of loyalty and faithfulness.
Careers are notoriously short in sport, but their hey-days are even briefer: seven or eight years at the most, and maybe even less for strikers, whose reliance on speed of thought and suppleness of movement is weightier than for many of their fellow professionals.
Reputations can be shredded in a matter of months and sometimes it is through no fault of their own. After all, few strikers can impress when they are starved of chances in struggling teams, which was Doyle's lot for the last six months, while all footballers ply their trade knowing they are never more than a snapped ligament away from early retirement.  
 The moral of the story for any players mulling over their futures with one of the also-rans seems obvious: to cast aside the crusty notion of fidelity and seize the first inviting opportunity that comes their way.
As Doyle is discovering, it might be the only chance they get.