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Gary McAllister completed his fifth inward transfer this afternoon when he got the signature of Argentinian, and former La Bombonera, striker Luciano Becchio on a three-year contract.

The signing wasn’t a surprise as McAllister had been saying how well he had done in the friendlies. After the 0-0 bore draw with Darlo on Tuesday, that Becchio was forced to sit out, Macca clearly felt the need for Becchio’s long-term presence.

The decision not to pursue Marcus Haber, a Canadian international striker who had scored in one of the Irish friendlies was also a strong hint that Macca had his mind made up. Also United were unimpressed with the dithering of Wolves striker Jay Bothroyd over joining Leeds when the clubs agreed a fee days ago. Bothroyd is clearly happier dwelling in a well-paid Championship reserve team rather than earning a living at the coal-face in League One.

Ken Bates will be pleased that the former Boca Juniors, Barcelona Athletic and Real Mallorca B striker arrives on a free transfer from his Spanish club, Merida Union Deportivo.

Just to clarify a common misconception, Becchio has been playing in the third tier of Spanish football not the second tier just below La Liga. Nonetheless, the reported tally of 28 goals in 50 games is good at any level in professional football.

Leeds’ other new striker Robert Snodgrass will be keen to have a word with Luciano to find out what it was like at Barcelona (even in the B or reserve team called “Athletic”). Barcelona once asked Snodgrass to come for a trial after he impressed them in a Scotland U-19 game. But the Livingston manager wouldn’t let him go on trial!

The Sun is claiming that 19 year-old, Liverpool FC reserve striker Krisztian Nemeth has rejected the chance to join Leeds on loan.

The Sun claims that Nemeth’s agent Tibor Pataky said, “The Leeds link is not the next step for sure.”

Prompted by the former association between McAllister and Liverpool, the article gives no evidence an actual Leeds United approach to Liverpool that prompted the question; so presumably the agent quote is a direct response to a Sun journo’s planted question - see “How to make news from nothing - part 1″.

A move for an Anfield bit-part player makes no sense whatsoever with the strikers already lined up by McAllister for next season. The imminent signing of Luciano Becchio is the current news on the Leeds United striker front, not this made-up nonsense.

Credibilty rating - 0 out of 10

Leeds United’s new shirt sponsor is netflights.com.

Netflights.com is one of the UK’s largest independent travel operators and is the UK’s number one operator to the increasingly-popular destination of Dubai.

Netflights stepped in to replace another sponsor that could not complete a sponsorship deal due to contractual difficulties.

Netflights has signed on for a three-year deal which is good news for the club and the fans who won’t have to get a new shirt every season because of sponsorship changes.

The deal with Netflights will mean that lucrative replica shirts can finally be sold by the club and the new-lit with logo will make its debut at Elland Road on Saturday in the home friendly against Belgians FCV Dender.

Netflights is more than just a commercial sponsor of Leeds. The MD of the company, Terry Fisher, is a lifelong Leeds United fan despite being a former chairman of his local club Huddersfield Town.

Older Leeds United fans will be pleased to now that there is a connection to the Revie era with the new sponsorship. Netflights owns Sellers Travel - a company operated by none other than former Leeds United and England defender Trevor Cherry, whom Revie signed from Huddersfield Town.

Terry Fisher commented about the deal,
“For me the deal is even sweeter as I have followed Leeds since I was a small boy and this is a relationship that will bring mutual benefit to all parties.”

Ken Bates said of the deal,
“The shirt sponsor is the principal sponsorship opportunity at every club and netflights.com will become part of Leeds United history alongside the other companies that have benefited from being a previous sponsor.

“We are delighted to sign a three-year agreement with a new sponsor to the club which further illustrates the confidence there is in Leeds United from the business community.

“I would like to welcome netflights.com to the Leeds United family and we look forward to working with them for what we all hope will be a mutually beneficial partnership.”

Head of commercial development at United, Steve Lewis said,
“We are delighted to welcome netflights.com as our new shirt sponsor – they have been a real white knight for us. We had signed a deal earlier in the year but contractual difficulties left us a without a sponsor just weeks before the season starts”.

The kick-off time for the Leeds United away trip to Stockport County on Sunday, December 28th has been brought forward on Gefusspo advice.

The scheduled kick-off of 3pm is now a 12 noon kick-off.

This is the sixth kick-off change for an away match for Leeds in 2008-09.

The other weaklings who have changed the kick-off times due to local police admitting they are unable to police a football match are:
Scunthorpe United (a relegated club, wow!), Yeovil Town (no surprise there from the scaredest fans in the league!), Carlisle United (arse-end of Cumbria), Peterborough United (lousy pubs, not missing owt there either) and Huddersfield Town (West Yorkshire police embarrass both teams with their admission).

Presumably at some point the Football League will step in to say that the repeated attempts to prevent Leeds United fans from attending away games is actually against the spirit of the League rules and will not be tolerated without a specific reason being given for the sudden extraordinary circumstances causing a change in kick-off time.

The fact that police feel unable to do the job that they are amply overpaid to do, is clearly not one of them.

We await the seventh change with baited breath and, actually, total disinterest, as we wouldn’t cross the road to piss on these clubs if they were on fire, let alone spend any money watching their wretched teams. Don’t want me, don’t want my money…