Player of the month award for Becks

Four goals last month taking his overall tally for the season to eleven in fourteen games led to Jermaine Beckford being awarded the PFA Coca-Cola League One fans player of the month for the first time this season.

After coming runner-up to Robert Snodgrass in September, Becks had to beat off more competition from his team-mates this month finishing ahead of both Snoddy and Bradley Johnson.

Max Gradel here to stay?

It’ll come as no suprise to Leeds fans that Simon Grayson wants to extend Max Gradel’s loan beyond it’s initial one month period.

Gradel got his first goal for Leeds United in an impressive display against Yeovil Town, where his introduction as a second half substitute completely changed the game. He had a similar impact against Norwich too and has become an instant hit at Elland Road.

Hopefully the gaffer will be looking into the possibility of signing him up permanently in January. The youngster clearly has a lot of potential and will cause havoc to every defence in this division. I also suspect he could do a job at the next level too.

No time for complaicency

After our 4-0 win over Yeovil Town left us seven points clear at the top of League One, Robert Snodgrass has urged the Leeds United team to keep it up and make us uncatchable after the Christmas fixtures.

Often a banana skin period for Leeds United, the Christmas fixture list is never something I look forward to. Although there seems to be very few problems for the next couple of months, with the majority of the big games coming towards the end of the season, Snoddy is right to say the players need to make their lead count and extend it beyond reach.

Speaking to the Yorkshire Evening Post, Snoddy said;

“If our form carries on like this, the worst-case scenario is that we’re going to be in a similar position at Christmas. That’s always a good time to take stock, regroup and then turn up the heat.

“The league’s never won by Christmas but we need to approach the next two months with the aim of being almost impossible to catch after Christmas.

“A seven-point lead going into January isn’t enough to guarantee you anything and the next step for us has to be to turn a good lead into a commanding one. We’ve got an opportunity to do that.

“It’s stupid to get ahead of yourselves when you’ve got 30-odd games to go and almost 100 points to play for and the one thing you never do in football is crack open the champagne early. I wouldn’t do that if we were in this position at the end of March so it’s not going to happen now.

“But when you’re at a club like this, you want to be a team that others are scared to play. I think that’s starting to happen.”

Same tired old clichés you expect when your at the top of the league, but someone has to say them and Snodgrass seems to have become a very influential figure within the squad. Let’s not crack the Champagne open early, is the same as not counting chickens and avoiding complaicency. It’s true of any team in our position and the lads need to ensure their foot remains on the gas.