Beckham needs a move to prove himself among the real greats

Hush. If you watch carefully, and listen to the wisdom of football's "twitchers", you might just spy the plumage of the Greater Crested Beckham preparing to fly south for warmer climes. Invariably, it tends to happen at this time of year, when sightings of the Beckham family on the verge of leaving their nest in Alderley Edge are as regular as claims of hearing the first cuckoo of spring.

Whether the England captain will actually set out on a journey to Madrid, or indeed his wife's preferred source of fashion chic, Milan, appears doubtful in the extreme for the moment. But more pertinently, should he entertain such a future? The answer is unquestionably yes, if the midfielder truly desires the oppor-tunity to ascend to the pantheon of the mightiest names in football. He needs to test himself, to stretch himself, over the remaining, say, five years of his career, in a team such as that of Real Madrid, nine-times European champions, where more versatility might be expected of him than is demanded at Manchester United.

On the front cover of the latest Hello, his features adorn the page, together with the blurb: "David Beckham – What makes him one of the most stylish men in Britain?" It is possible that when he retires from the game in his early thirties, he might prefer magazines to be asking "What makes him the most stylish man in Europe?" Sports magazines, that is, referring to his demeanour on the pitch.

For the moment, there is still that suspicion among aficionados abroad that he is essentially a two-trick pony: a divine crosser and a lethal striker of the ball from dead, blessed with a much-admired, voracious appetite for the ball when not in possession. One or two unkind souls have even suggested that Beckham would benefit from football being run on gridiron lines, whereby he would only enter the arena to take corners and free-kicks.

When a purchase price has been suggested of £40m or more, the advice to United has been: bite their hands off – especially as the word is that Beckham and his manager have, to use that marital term, "grown apart".

There is considerably more to Beckham's attributes, but Sir Alex Ferguson prefers him to devote his energies to the flank. When Beckham actually manages to occupy central midfield, while not exactly possessing the deftness of a Dennis Bergkamp when delivering the ball forward, he can flight the ball with considerable aplomb. There is the suggestion that, granted the opportunity, his potential could flourish. Clearly, he would relish the chance to display such talent on a more regular basis in a city where Mrs B would apparently feel at home.

As for the authenticity of the story itself, after a week of frantic codebreaking by those who claim to be expert at interpreting the utterances of the men who speak for the major world powers and the artists they covet, we are more or less back where we started. Beckham said no more or less than he might have been expected to when drawn on the matter: "Real are a great club with great players and tradition. Any player would be honoured to be spoken about by Real Madrid." The club said more initially, but then removed the lure like a marine-park feeder withdrawing a fish from a leaping dolphin. "The possibility of Beckham one day playing for Real Madrid is extremely remote," said sporting director Jorge Valdano, who added that the concept of Luis Figo departing, as a result of Beckham's arrival, was "impossible".

That element of the saga is what appears to make it even more implausible, and merely compounds the suspicion that there may be no more to this than the Spanish club delighting in a distraction for Beckham, and Manchester United, ahead of the two teams' Champions' League semi-final.

But somehow you feel it would be unwise to dismiss the possibility entirely. Certainly Beckham shouldn't.