On yet another day when Leeds completed the signing of two more Italians, our ‘head coach’ has conceded that it’s about time we started to shed some of the players who will be surplus to requirements.
First up was Giuseppe Bellusci, who has decided to turn his loan move from Catania into a permanent one, and has signed a contract that will keep at the club until June 2018. The 24-year-old central defender was an used substitute against Brighton and he’s in contention to make his Leeds debut at Watford.
David Hockaday told the official site "Giuseppe has come into the club and has made an instant impact with the rest of the squad.He is a strong personality with leadership skills. As well as that he is great at organsing and brings added quality into our defence. "He is an experienced footballer and we are hopeful he can bring all his qualities to the squad.”
And up front Mirco Antenucci has signed on a two year contract from Ternana, subject to international clearance. The 30-year-old, who was the captain of Ternana last season, and judging by the photo on the official site his former club had a particularly horrible red and green kit. He took to twitter to tell us "Proud to be a part of this club, I hope to give you a lot of satisfaction.” Please do, Micro.
Antenucci scored 19 goals for Ternana in Serie B last season, which made him the fifth highest goalscorer in that division. I make it that we’ve now got six central strikers at the club, plus Poleon and Ajose, so surely it’s time for one or two of them to leave in search of first team football. Matt Smith has just signed a new contract, so we’ll have to pray that Noel Hunt will be on his way, though if the rumours about his wages are true it will be hard to get anyone to take him off our hands.
At his press conference today Hockaday said, "We are working on trimming the squad. It is becoming obvious that we need to help people. We`ve got some good players here and if they aren`t going to be playing as often as they want, we appreciate that they might want to go elsewhere. There`s some good pro`s here and we are in the process of moving one or two on. You are looking for 20 to 22 senior players, with a number of talented youngsters also in the mix to help the main squad."
Leeds currently have of 31 players with squad numbers, so we’ve got a lot of work to do to get the squad down to that size before the transfer window shuts in ten days time. Hockaday has also said that a virus had gone through the squad before the Brighton game, which explained the lacklustre performance. We can but hope that was the only reason we played so badly and we can look forward to something much better at Watford.