BBC Radio Leeds have reported that we won’t be offering Keith Gillespie a contract after his recent trial with the club.
The 34-year old Northern Ireland international has been without a club since being released by Sheffield United, and had spent the past two weeks training at Thorp Arch. But Simon Grayson has now decided he has adequate cover in that position.
I can’t say I’m surprised at this decision, and I was puzzled when I heard that signing Gillespie was even a possibility. He usually plays wide on the right, but we already have Snodgrass and Robinson as specialist wingers, who can operate down that side if necessary.
Gillespie has never really lived up the promise he initially showed when he first emerged through the same Man U youth team as Beckham, Scholes and the Nevilles. He was valued at over £1 million when he moved to Newcastle in the mid-90s (when Andy Cole went the other way as part of the same deal) but then his career seemed to drift downwards as he went through a series of clubs, when word had it that some of his off-field activities were getting in the way of his football.
So I never really thought he’d be a Grayson type player, especially at an age when you’d expect him to be some way past his best.
Radio Leeds have also reported that Australian international central defender Nikolai Topor-Stanley is another player who won’t be joining Leeds, and he returned to Newcastle Jets (that’s Newcastle, New South Wales) after an unsuccessful trial at Elland Road.