Thursday, January 7, 2010

Jermaine Beckford pushes for Leeds exit

Riding the crest from the shocking victory over Manchester United, Jermaine Beckford has formally requested a transfer from Leeds. The twenty-six year-old striker is without a contract at seasons end and sought after by a numbers of clubs, including Newcastle.

As per Leeds formal statement:

"Leeds United can confirm that Jermaine Beckford has handed in a transfer request. The transfer request was handed in on Dec 30. By handing in a transfer request it clearly indicates that the player wants to leave Leeds United."

With Newcastle the apparent front-runner, though still well off Leeds rumoured asking price of £3m, Mr. Bates and company are making it known that the striker will not come cheap, further adding in the statement:

"However, that will only be allowed to happen in the event that it is decided to be in the best interests of Leeds United. The best interests of Leeds United involve receiving both an acceptable transfer fee and securing a suitable replacement to ensure his departure does not have an adverse effect on the club's overall aim of securing promotion back to the Championship."

For Leeds, the situation is both a troublesome predicament as well as being inevitable. Jermaine Beckford has been under the looking glass for the last three campaigns and Sunday's performance against Manchester United where he not only scored the matches lone goal but consistently out duelled Wes Brown, reaffirmed the strikers desire to move to the higher ranks. Whilst speculative in nature, one could assume that he is looking ahead with his sights towards Newcastle's successful promotional bid, thus jettisoning him to the Premier League. That aside many will question whether the move on his part is shortsighted and like youngster Fabian Delph, who has rarely seen the pitch since moving to Aston Villa, he would do better staying the course with Leeds.

prepared by J.Davies