Leeds need to score more goals, Luciano Becchio scores more goals than Dimitar Berbatov (who probably isn’t available anyway) and, as it turns out, wants to return to Leeds. I’m torn between sobbing uncontrollably at the “ex you still love coming home” and “smashing up all their belongings for having the audacity to leave us in the first place”.

It’s not a huge leap, is it? Obtaining players is like rolling the dice (for us, anyway). If your mental board don’t immediately veto the signing based on their Football Manger rating (hence why we didn’t sign Ashley Barnes, because Luke “shitbag” Varney was rated better in the game), there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to adjust to the ridiculous environment that is Leeds United. Signing for Leeds invariably means bigger crowds than you’re used to, pressure (from both fans and the club) that is wildly disproportional to any kind of realistic ambition and you need to operate under a mental owner.

Luciano has proven himself at Leeds; he’s always worked hard, scored goals and played for the shirt. Apart from the time he requested to leave because he wanted more money. Or he merely missed the good Leeds players so much he opted to followed them to Norwich.

Luciano Becchio "desperate" to re-join #LUFC. Agent: "It's the club he loves. It's his home and where he belongs." http://t.co/PHXTd6KGSl — James Marshment (@marshyleeds) January 7, 2015

The pros

He knows the club, he knows the fans and he knows what to expect in those regards. He won’t be under the same level of scrutiny as Doukara (as an example), because many of us have watched him receive a simple ball then chase it back to the half-way line after controlling it on his shin. An unknown entity to us would be lambasted on social media like they had expressed a fondness for “getting paid when not being played”, whereas we know his strengths and weaknesses already.

The cons

Sadly, there are many. He’s 31 and hasn’t really seen first team football in a few moons. Frozen out at Norwich, behind the woeful Ricky van Wolfswinkel, he had to go out on loan to find football. Mystifyingly finding himself at Rotherham where he deliberately broke his own foot rather than play against his beloved Leeds. Or so I’ve chosen to believe. He scored 2 goals in 5 games at Rotherham before throwing himself down a flight of stairs to avoid breaking his own heart.

His stats at Norwich aren’t brilliant, but given he seemed to be brought on for 5 minutes here and 4 minutes there at times where matches were being wound out. I don’t think this should count against his abilities as such, but it’s never ideal to have a striker who has scored only twice since he left Leeds 2 years ago. On paper that makes it only 18 games with 2 goals in 2 years. It’s still better than Noel Hunt though.

Wingers?

I think there’s a fair argument to be made for whether Becchio would be effective in our current system; given we don’t actually make crosses that beat the first man and our set pieces are less effectual than Josie Cunningham’s brain. So Luciano would likely play alongside Antenucci and have balls played in to him, would that be a problem without any natural width in the team?

In theory yes, in practice no. When you look at his final (and rather prolific) season at Leeds, we were operating with a midfield that consisted of:

Michael Brown

David Norris

Jerome Thomas (who I did rate)

Michael Tonge

Paul Green

Thomas aside, there’s not a lot of width (or talent) in those players – while Becchio managed to score 20 goals by Christmas. So as much as it seems like a logistical problem, experience shows that actually he’s fine with any ham-fisted service.

Should we bring him back?

Yes. I’m not just saying that for nostalgic value, we need options and I believe he’s still got the goal-scoring knack. The problem is that he’s a similar player to Billy Sharp who hasn’t really been played to his strengths (and conversely has had questions raised over whether he’s the player we think he is anymore).

Becchio is our 10th all time league scorer, on that basis alone he’s worth bringing back. Whether financially we’re able to, I don’t know – we are under embargo after all. But I would welcome him back. Plus I like his song.

Fans are understandably mixed on this, but in the grand scale of things I think I’d rather have Becchio on loan than Pavoletti – because the former is proven at this level in this league, whereas the other is another gamble. Neil Redfearn said there needed to be some short-term thinking applied to get results immediately, and Luciano is a lower risk way of adding something to the squad.

Not forgetting that options are limited in January, too. Top players don’t move around for affordable prices, nor would they come to a relegation-threatened Northern side with financial woes and an unpredictable owner (who may or may not still need to vacate the club permanently). Our options are to bring in an unwanted player or an unproven one. For me, Luciano is the best combination of what we need and what we can get.

And for that reason, I’m in.

Oh, and because of things like this.