CAN someone please tell me what has happened to Morten Gamst Pedersen?

It's not so long ago people were describing him as the 'Norwegian David Beckham', after a glut of spectacular goals put him on the radars of Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.

But right now, Morten looks a pale shadow of his former self, and Mark Hughes must be tearing his hair out wondering what he has to do to get him performing again.

As someone remarked last week, perhaps Mark should sell Gamst and bring back Pedersen.

Apart from a purple patch in the middle of last season, Pedersen has been off colour for a while now, and it's hard to put a finger on the reasons why he has lost that Midas touch.

Perhaps all the speculation about a big-money move has turned his head? Or maybe it's a confidence thing? Who knows?

But whatever it is that's affecting Morten's form, the one thing that can't be denied is he's just not performing to anything like his normal levels at the moment, and that must be a major worry for Sparky.

Normally speaking, Morten gives us great balance down the left, but things just aren't happening for him right now and it may be time to take him out of the firing line again and try someone else out there.

The disappointing thing is we all know the kind of quality he is capable of producing.

When Morten's fit and firing on all cylinders, there are few better goalscoring wingers in the Premier League.

But when the goals dry up, as they have done this season (he has yet to score in the Premier League this term), he suddenly looks half the player, which is what we are seeing now.

Morten isn't alone, though, in suffering a loss of form.

Several other players, who were flying earlier in the season, are also having a hard time of it at present.

Chris Samba, for instance, hasn't been quite as commanding as he can be in the last month or so, and it was noticeable that he struggled on Sunday once West Ham threw on Dean Ashton at the beginning of the second half.

Although he's 6ft 5in, Chris often struggles against the more physical centre-forwards.

He's great at reading the game and nicking the ball off people, but I sometimes feel he needs to punch his weight more in certain situations.

That said, he's still been a phenomenal signing and there's no doubt he's got a massive future ahead of him.

As for the two strikers, they're also suffering from a dip in form, too.

To be fair, on Sunday I thought there was little wrong with their general link-up play, but the problem was too much of it was taking place outside the box.

Benni McCarthy, in particular, spent far too much time dropping deep and he was doing a lot of tricks on the halfway line, rather than the edge of the 18-yard box, where he can really hurt teams.

It's no coincidence neither striker has scored in the last six games because they're not in the box enough to get on the end of things.

Don't be surprised then if Mark makes four or five changes at Wigan on Saturday because things need shaking up.