The Scratching Shed

First of all, let’s get one thing straight; I’m not anti-Beckford. Infact, regular readers of TSS will know I’ve been one of his biggest advocates. His record speaks for itself and the contribution the lad has made to Leeds over the last three years shouldn’t be undermined even if he does leave.

The fact of the matter is though; Beckford is just one of eleven. As a team we’ve performed well this season, as a team we lead the division and as a team, I think we’ll get promoted with or without Beckford, assuming Simon Grayson is given the necessary funds while the transfer window is open.

At League One level, Jermaine Beckford is an exceptional striker and I do believe he could do a job at a higher level. In the Championship he’d definitely provide goals. Whether or not he could do the same in the Premier League is questionable, but let’s not get into another debate about where his natural level is because quite frankly, no one is ever going to agree and it’s becoming tedious.

The thing is though, Beckford is not irreplaceable. There are plenty of strikers out there capable of scoring one in two. As the League One scorers charts currently show, even in this division there’s one striker with more goals to his name than Beckford (Lambert), one with the same amount (Holt) and another just one goal behind him in a much weaker team (Barnard). That’s three strikers that match/exceed him on stats in just one division, so Beckford is hardly a one off. 

What’s made this such a major issue is that the fans of Leeds United expect blind loyalty from anyone wearing the shirt. That all white strip means a lot to us and we expect it to mean the same to those wearing it. Unfortunately, that’s very rarely going to be the case. A football player, like a builder, a landlord or a lawyer is just a job and much like the builders, landlords and lawyers, the players will move when offered a better opportunity elsewhere. It’s that simple, and each and every one of us would do the same.

Take away the fans emotions from football and you’re left with a business like any other. If football is the oil business, then Leeds United would be Esso. Jermaine Beckford meanwhile would be one of the sandwiches you find in their petrol stations. Much like the sandwich, Beckford’s value depends on a date and his best before is the end of this transfer window. After that, should we keep him I have no doubts he’ll bag another 15 goals this season, but Leeds United would lose £1.5-2,000,000 and our most important striker.

But promotion is worth more than any £2,000,000 I hear you cry? I can’t argue with that, it’s a good point, but he still should be sold while he has a value and can make the business that is Leeds United football club money.

The main reason I stress he should be sold is because if he is, we arguably have £2,000,000 to play with. There are things to deduct from that figure such as the Wealdstone cut, but that’s beside the point. Whether Beckford leaves now or in the summer, he has to be replaced. If we can sell Beckford now and get a replacement in for £x,000,000 then you can deduct whatever we made from Beckford from that sum and the overall cost is not as much. Leave it ‘til the summer when he’s worth nothing to Leeds United and that £x,000,000 still has to be forked out, but none of it’s recouped from anything. We lose Beckford, we lose the money he was worth and we still have to replace him.

It all comes down to whether you want Leeds United to be run like a business, or dictated by fans emotions. The latter is how Peter Ridsdale ran it, whilst the former seems to have done us well so far. I know which I prefer.

Jermaine Beckford’s transfer out of Leeds now seems somewhat inevitable. For me, it’s simply a matter of time and a question of how much as Ken Bates digs his nails in and tries to ignite a bidding war.

So who do we get to replace him? TSS looks at our options.

Lee Barnard

Southend United, 25 years old.

As consistent as they come at League One level, Barnard has found the back of the net 35 times in his 73 appearances for Southend leaving him just short of the one in two mark.

Although there’s been no rumours linking Barnard to Leeds, he is a proven goal scorer and his contract expires in the summer, so it’s likely we could get him on the cheap (Ken Bates’ favourite word). Likelihood factor: 4 out of 10

Grant Holt

Norwich City, 28 years old.

A bit long in the tooth in comparison to other possible candidates, but Holt certainly has an eye for goal with 14 in the League and 20 in all competitions so far this season. No stranger to the transfer market after with Norwich being his eleventh professional club, Holt has seemingly never settled anywhere.

Only joined Norwich at the beginning of the season and is integral to their promotion push. Selling him would show a massive lack of ambition for a team chasing at our heels so this one for me, is extremely unlikely. Likelihood factor: 1 out of 10.

"You're the one that I want..." Gary Hooper

Gary Hooper

Scunthorpe United, 21 years old

At just 21 years old, Hooper has to be seen as a good signing given that he’s managed 31 goals in 62 games for Scunthorpe and could well develop and take the next step with Leeds United. Contracted until 2011, but with Scunthorpe a likely replacement for Leeds in League One next year, he may be interested in a move.

With his age and record to date, Hooper is my personal favourite, but any a sale would not go down well in Scunthorpe and do little to help their relegation battle. Likelihood factor: 5 out of 10

Billy Sharp

Sheffield United,  23 years old.

Out of favour at Sheffield United and currently on loan to Doncaster Rovers, where he’s found his form hitting 10 goals in 16 league appearances. Billy is from Yorkshire and proved himself to be a natural goal scoring talent at Scunthorpe where he knocked in 53 in 82 games, breaking club records in the process.

Sheffield United will undoubtedly be willing to sell, and I think Billy would be happy to stay local to his home town. At just 23 years of age he’s definitely in the right age group and should be able to take the next step up with Leeds United. Likelihood factor: 9 out of 10 (Heavy favourite)

What about Lambert?

I’m sure Rickie Lambert will be a talking point but we have absolutely no chance of getting him as far as I’m concerned. Southampton don’t need the money and are likely to make the play-offs, so there’s no reason for them to sell.

Anyway, I’ve opened a poll below for you to cast your vote.

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TSS has raised the question of how much is a silly money offer for Beckford? I have a formula to work it out below, but perhaps we should take this opportunity to look at the bigger picture, like should we really sell him at all, for example?  Transfer windows are times that give us, the supporters a rare chance to judge senior management by their actions, rather than by reputation or popularity. The January 2010 window could make or break Leeds United’s hopes of promotion from League One and I think deals need to be approached scientifically, especially the rumoured sale of Beckford to Newcastle United.

"Well I suppose technically I am a tax exile, yes." said Santa

We all know the results are coming good on the pitch and the table proves we’re doing something right. I have no idea what the current financial statements might be, but I should imagine that off the pitch, we should be doing quite well too. We can look to a few facts that we know to give us a clue. In Summer, we sold Delph. Surely we must have at least part of the transfer fee in our account by now and we didn’t buy anybody for significant money to reduce it. We have been on television or the internet (same fee,) more times than just about any club other than Newcastle. Linked to the TV appearances are our decent Cup runs, indeed the clash against Glazer brothers’ Manchester Disunited is worth about £750 000 alone according to our own chairman. I would guess the fact that the Boxing Day match was a home game must have been worth a few quid too. It certainly looked busy. Finally we might just have found the winning formula after so many years in a downward spiral. So why, oh why are we even considering letting our top scoring striker go? You don’t have to like him to see that he scores goals. Just read the statistics.

Logic dictates it’s not about money. The points above surely re-inforce this. I doubt even that it could be about disharmony in the team. I was quietly impressed that Beckford gave a Hartlepool player a shove when he clattered into Bradley Johnson. It’s the same principle as sticking up for your mates. Is it about attitude? The mark of disrespect when Simon Grayson subbed him isn’t a big deal. An apology and perhaps a bit of a grilling and things like that should be forgotten. I did a lot worse at his age and Simon Grayson is not Peter Reid. So for those fans that don’t like Beckford, I say enjoy the goals, just don’t invite him round for dinner. What about the Millwall penalty and other big occasions when he apparently fails to shine? Well I would just say that there are two teams on the pitch and Beckford has a reputation big enough to justify man-marking him. Even in this league, there are defenders good enough to keep him quiet.

Maybe this is a time when we the fans have been caught bang to rights. It’s us that could be the difference between our best striker staying or leaving. I’ve been reading blogs pointing out a fact that had escaped me, which is that if Beckford scores 100 goals he becomes one of our most prolific strikers relative to the time he’s been here. (Sorry I can’t find the exact details again, but you get the idea.) Surely this should make the lad a legend and yet a sizeable number of fans want him to leave because he throws his teddy out occasionally. It’s not our fault directly if Beckford leaves because we’re not the ones signing the paperwork but if our board thought that selling Becks would make gate receipts suffer, he would already have the most lucrative contract since Seth Johnson. We should be getting behind his performances because for every quiet patch or miss, he bounces back with goals at some point. I’ve even seen him work his socks off in a few games recently. But soon it seems it’s going to be too late to sing his name.

Personally, I wouldn’t be quite as bothered about Becks going if I thought there was a plan B. I’m sure Simon Grayson has got one, because he’s obviously a very smart fellow to have got us this far, but we just don’t know if he has one because nobody talks to the fans anymore. It’s fair to say that Leeds United’s PR is even worse than Eurostar. Over a hundred thousand fans worldwide have to wait for the South Shields Gazette to find out anything about the most important thing to happen to the team for two seasons. Grayson has already said that only a silly money offer would tempt the club, it’s true, but that was October. It’s now December and a hundred thousand people want to know if you have changed your mind.

So never mind Maria, how do you solve a problem like Beckford? Who could replace him? I think he’s irreplaceable at our kind of money. It won’t be Ricky Lambert, under contract to Southampton who have more financial clout than us with their new chairman. I can’t imagine our chairman making them an offer they can’t refuse so we can forget that idea straight away. If you were in charge of Norwich would you sell Holt either? A weakened Leeds United means a player like him could help them lift the title. They have a good enough team. We could look to higher leagues but then we have that problem of money. We would have to pay decent money for someone such as a Cresswell, Healy, Hulse or Blake like we used to have last time in the CCC and Healy’s best tally was only 14 goals in the 05-06 season. More money for fewer goals? That’s not good business. But the fact that Leeds have even talked to Newcastle speaks volumes. It’s probably now just a question of money and then I guess we unearth a stop-gap player from the loan market or lower leagues. So if he is going to go, how much is the right price?

If Chris Hughton is reading, let me save you some time. I can give you the mathematical equation for the correct transfer fee (F) to offer for Beckford:

F = (T*W)+P

To the rest of us, that’s the total of this years’ court costs (T), add 20% for Wealdstone’s sell on clause (W) and then add the cost of a private return jet flight to Monaco to sign the paperwork (P). Our board doesn’t factor in anything for the future good of the club (FA)

Happy New Year.

Footballing weather at it’s best awaited Leeds United and the in-form Norwich as the smaller than average Leeds United faithful took their seats for what would be another cold, damp night at Elland Road.

Since I’d been away for a couple of days prior, and was almost literally living in a cave, Sam Vokes’ name being read out on the Elland Road PA system was how I discovered we’d won the race for his signature. I knew we were in the race for the striker, but had no idea the deal had been completed or that he’d be starting the game tonight.

His performance didn’t do much to impress me over the course of the game. He clearly had a good first touch and was an excellent prospect, but his eagerness to get his name on the scoresheet meant he opted to shoot from 30-40 yards rather than play the ball to those with a much better chance infront of him.

Another suprise was the return of Shane Higgs who I’d been led to believe was out for another couple of weeks yet. As it turned out, he clearly wasn’t ready to return to the first team and was taken off early on and replaced by the ever-unconvincing Casper Ankergren. Robert Snodgrass and Jason Crowe were also welcomed back to the squad after the two week break gave them time to recover from their injuries.

Leeds started the game brightly and were rewarded early on when Bradley Johnson opened the scoring by netting his sixth of the season after converting a corner with his head.

Norwich weren’t going to be beaten easily though and it soon became clear as to why they’d moved up the league so quickly and won their last four games. Their passing was simply a joy to watch, they moved the ball well and created chances whilst Leeds struggled to deal with the constant threat.

Norwich’s efforts soon paid off as Grant Holt got the better of Bradley Johnson and scored to send the teams in level at the break.

The second half started well for Leeds with Beckford having the first chance for the Whites. However, Norwich soon re-established themselves and became the dominant force once more. A good save from Ankergren and a fair bit of luck were the only things that kept Leeds United level as they struggled for ideas and started to look like the away team.

No one so far this season has managed to make Leeds look so easily out-classed at Elland Road, but in Norwich we’d found a serious stumbling block. Grayson made his final two changes within minutes of one another, bringing on Tresor Kandol and another loan signing, Max Gradel.

It was the latter who made the biggest impact on the game, although Tres also had his chances. Max Gradel’s introduction changed the flow of the game completely and the youngster’s pace and vision gave Leeds United hope.

Only a brilliant save from Norwich’s keeper kept the scores level as Gradel did well to send Beckford through one on one. After trying his luck from distance, Gradel once again laid another chance on a silver platter for Jermaine Beckford to convert, but the striker missed a golden opportunity to give Leeds all three points.

After two golden opportunites to win it for Leeds, it looked like it wasn’t going to be our day and in all fairness, a draw would have been a fair result. However, Jermaine Beckford managed to redeem himself after a comical error from the Norwich keeper saw him gifted another golden opportunity, of which he made no mistake. It may have taken three attempts, but eventually the frontman came good and Leeds move back to the top of League One.

Overall, a game we probably didn’t deserve to win, but three points we’ll very happily take. You have to ride your luck at times when challenging for the title and we definitely did that here. Overall, the performance wasn’t terrible, but Norwich were definitely the better team.

Jermaine Beckford’s failure to convert several good chances was a bit of the worry, especially since he found himself one on one with the keeper twice (thanks to Max Gradel).

Another shocking referee that made some extremely poor decisions and refused to let the game flow spoilt the match a bit throughout and frustrated both sets of supporters. I was also extremely annoyed at the Norwich City team for their lack of sportsmanship when Shane Higgs was struggling with an injury and in desperate need of replacing. The ball went out for a throw, which was when the Leeds bench expected to make the change, only for Norwich to rush it so they couldn’t with no interference from the ref – perhaps the only time he kept his whistle out of his mouth for the entire game!

TSS man of the match
When David Beckham was awarded man of the match for his cameo appearence in the England game last week, Capello likened it to gicing Barack Obama the Noble Peace Prize for his eight months in office. Although I totally understand what he means by this, I think the only Leeds United player worthy of man of the match was Max Gradel. Much like Beckham did for England, Gradel changed the game for Leeds and created chances where there were none before. His contribution earnt us the three points in my eyes.