Giuseppe Bellusci was left out of the Leeds squad after for the game with Hull City after a fallout with Steve Evans, so have we seen the last of him in a Leeds shirt?
First, the good news. The Yorkshire Post are reporting that Bellusci stormed out of training last week after he was told that he wouldn’t be in the starting line-up for Saturday’s game, and was then left out of the matchday squad altogether.
Initially Evans said that the 26-year old had been omitted due to injury, but the Post are claiming to have three separate witnesses to back up their story. They are claiming Bellusci left Thorp Arch as soon as he was told he wouldn’t be playing, after complaining about Evans’ decision to anyone who would listen.
Bellusci has made only 25 league appearances this season, which is partly due to a couple of suspensions after picking up a series of bookings through reckless tackles. But it also seems that Evans has decided Bamba and Cooper are his central defensive pairing of choice, despite Bamba’s occasional costly errors and lack of pace.
Many Leeds fans would be delighted if the relationship between Bellusci and Evans has broken down altogether, the Italian moved on during the summer. We’ve got tired of his constant mistakes, and haven’t forgotten that he was one of the ‘sicknote six’ who set out to undermine Neil Redfearn this time last year.
It’s unbelievable that we paid around £1.6 million for him in 2014, and any normal football club owner would now be looking to recoup as much of that fee as he could, and use the proceeds to sign at least one new central defender during the summer.
But the bad news is that the fallout with Evans may not matter to Bellusci in a couple of weeks time, with Evans being the one whose position at the club is most in doubt. Cellino still hasn’t spoken to his head coach about a new contract, even though Evans’ current deal only runs till the end of the season.
This is despite the fact that Evans has done what Cellino asked in steering Leeds away from the relegation zone, and could take as high as the play-offs next season with a couple of decent signings during the summer. So we probably haven’t seen the back of Bellusci after all, but if Cellino is about to lead us to another season of general instability, that won’t be our biggest problem.