James Dielhenn asks the question.
When we started the new Championship season with Jermaine Beckford long gone, Billy Paynter and Robert Snodgrass injured, and Max Gradel and Davide Somma suspended, we were all crying out for attacking reinforcements.
Simon Grayson had just the important Luciano Becchio, as well as fringe striker Mike Grella, low profile new boy Lloyd Sam, and last season’s bit-part loanee Sanchez Watt. If we’d have signed Ross McCormack from Cardiff back then, before our opener against Derby, he would have surely gone straight into the starting eleven.
But Sam and Watt have been a revelation, Becchio already has two goals, and Somma and Gradel have made impressive returns from their enforced lay-offs. In the next couple of weeks Grayson will anticipate having Snodgrass and Paynter at his disposal, therefore begging the question where McCormack will fill in.
The Scot isn’t a like-for-like replacement for Beckford. He plays off the main striker, in a similar vein as Snodgrass. So if Grayson plays a 4-3-3 formation, McCormack would suit playing on one of the wings in the front three – the same position as Sam, Watt, Gradel and Snodgrass. In a 4-4-2, McCormack would surely play up-front alongside a typical no.9, feeding off the main man. This would mean only one from Becchio, Somma or Paynter could play (not to mention Grella, who will probably be offloaded now).
It has been reported that Leeds have paid in region of £500,000 for McCormack’s services. He is a proven Championship player with a good scoring record, and although he could quite easily be a mainstay of our team and dislodge the current crop, other areas of the team needed strengthening before our attack.
If Grayson spent that money on a centre-back that could break up the calamitous pairing of Richard Naylor and Neill Collins, we would be a stronger team. If he spent that money on a defensive midfielder that complimented Jonny Howson and Neil Kilkenny’s passing skills, then we would be a stronger team. McCormack’s expensive arrival means he will either fill the bench, or force another in-form attacker to be a substitute, while we continue to field below-par players in other areas of the pitch.
James Dielhenn.
