Strange but true.

On the journey to MK Dons last Saturday the conversation with my son turned to Leon Knight and how scandalous it is that his career has nosedived.

Who did I bump into in the car park before the game? None other than Albion and MK’s former pint-sized marksman.

I say little but there is more of Leon these days. The face is chubbier, the torso rounder than the muscle-rippling frame he exposed after slotting the Seagulls’ decisive penalty in the play-off final five years ago.

Knight's goals won Albion promotion that season. Nothing saddens me more than natural talent going to waste and he is a classic example.

Knight has been his own worst enemy. He cannot keep his mouth shut, falling out with countless English clubs and their managers, including the Seagulls.

Lack of inches would count against him in the Premier League – although Mark Stein overcame that obstacle at Chelsea, where Knight was regarded as a prodigious prospect with a stinking attitude.

He should at least be playing in the Championship but refuses to learn from the way his career has panned out.

Now, while former Albion team-mate Colin Kazim-Richards has been lording it in the Champions League and the Turkish national side, Knight is playing in the backwaters of Greece with a club called Thrasivoulos.

That sounds more like a nasty illness than a venue fitting for one so talented and yet so infuriatingly pig-headed.

I have written nothing here that I did not say to Leon’s face during our chat in the Stadiummk car park.

He is only 26 and, if he gets himself fit and mends his ways, it is not too late for him to make another stunning and more sustained impact in English football, but I’m not holding my breath.