Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Becchio, whats next?


In the summer of 2008 an unknown Argentinian joined Leeds on the pre-season tour in Ireland and impressed manager Gary McAllister enough for him to get a permanent deal with the club. We've had loads of good memories of Becchio since, the promotion, the FA Cup runs and him being one of our best players of the past few seasons where everyone around him with a splash of talent left Elland Road faster then a drugdealer with the police shows up.

Those of you who know me or follow me on twitter (@kimleeds) will know that I'm a pretty huge Becchio fan, in my opinion he's the only player in a Leeds shirt since the 1992 team that have earned the right to be called legend, a frase that seems very overused by Leeds fans.

But now it seems that Becchio's time with Leeds is running out, no new deal can be agreed and Becchio have requested a transfer, sparking interrest from both Premier League clubs and finacial attractive teams abroad, so what to do?
There's still 18 months left of Becchios deal at Leeds, but if we can get the suggested £2,5-3,5M and thse money will be re-invested (never heard that before) in the team, then even I think we should probably let Becchio go.

Eventhough I'm as massive a BecchioBeliever as I am, there will never be a player bigger then the club for me, and no one should be kept at the club if they don't wish to be there. I think we'll have a very hard time finding a proven goalscorer at this level for less the 25-30K p/w but if the club have a wage budget and want to follow that then I understand why they can't/won't break it.

However to replace Becchio within our budget will take a lot of luck, players have been mentioned both on Twitter and from more reliable sources, some well known, which we cant get at our budget, and some lottery tickets, which I'm not sure can deliver 20-25 goals per season.

But if/when Becchio leaves he'll leave with my best wishes and I'll always keep an eye on his remaining career.

Marching on together Luciano!



Thursday, January 24, 2013

A dream about the return of the Max...


This tweet from Yorkshire Evening Posts Phil Hay saw twitter melt down last night with people agreeing that this would be an awesome signing and that GFH finally showed some ambition.

Problems already occured in Hay's next tweet where he stated that:
"Deal for Gradel is unlikely to be straightforward or cheap. Sounds like St Etienne are very reluctant to lose him"

I can't see this deal happening at all to be honest, why would Maxi leave France, a place he badly wanted to go due to homesickness, and why would he leave a French top 10 team to join a team that probably wont be playing in the Premier League in the next few years, it makes no sense.

So what's the deal with this story, after talking on twitter with some people I've made the following, ungrounded, conclusion. GFH are sick of Leeds fans saying they show no ambition, so how do you prove that you have ambition, you publish a story about wanting to re-sign a fan favorite, this is really clever especially considering that its a deal that looks this unlikely, but at least they'll have "tried" right?

Being on twitter every now and then gives me a clear image of Leeds fans being people that sometimes only remember the good things about former players and staff, for instance the Poyet story (that he'd like to return), people seem to have forgotten that he fucked off when a chance to join Spurs (as a translator????) came up. The Gradel story seems to be the same, everyone forgot that he wanted to leave us and did, and even more everyone seem to have forgotten that he almost cost us our promotion in May 2010.

Having said that I'd still welcome him back though, Gradel that is, Poyet can f*** off, chelsea bastard.