Luciano Becchio- Recapturing past glories; never the same the second time around.

I know that the official line is really to wait until the signing is made and the mistakes made before judgement is cast, but I guess you could call me recklessly impetuous. I learned the hard way that going back into an ex-relationship based on former love is not a thing of beauty; rather it is a thing fraught with both danger and deceit. In the brutal vernacular of the UK television anti-drug campaigns, I simply urge one thing; don't do it!

Now, I'm not lecturing you on your romantic liasons; I am simply analogising about whether we, as Leeds United, should welcome Luciano Becchio back into our loving embrace after his non-jaunt in the Premiership with Norwich City or should we make that brutally honest decision that it's never the same the second time around?

At Leeds it was blatantly obvious why we fell in love with him. He wasn't the quickest player, he didn't possess that mercurial dribbling instinct or that supreme balance that could throw opponents with the slightest of twitches of a shoulder. We loved him because he was hard-working and scored goals: 86 goals and 20 assists in 219 appearances including 16 (with 4 assists) in the 28 games in 2012/13 before we sold him to the Canaries. Since then, he has made only 26 total appearances: 16 for Norwich (276 minutes - 0 goals - 1 assist), 5 for Norwich U21s (408 minutes - 2 goals - 1 assist) and 5 with Rotherham on loan (248 minutes - 2 goals). In fact, he has played only 248 minutes at Rotherham because he suffered a hairline fracture to his heel.

I don't dislike Becchio, not at all. I do think that he has a lot to offer to a Championship-level club; I just don't think that it is us. We don't play the system that would take into account his strengths, we barely get the ball into the areas that Becchio would occupy and profit from for the strikers that we currently have. Becchio at the head of our '2014/15 Diamond' would cut a forlorn figure and there are no raking balls into the box from out wide for him to latch onto or power in a trademark header.

Plus, even if he did sign, I don't think he is an upgrade on any of the three main strikers (Mirco Antenucci, Souleymane Doukara or Billy Sharp) currently plying their trade at Elland Road. He doesn't have Antenucci's pace, nor does he have Doukara's physicality and power and he certainly isn't as technically good as Billy Sharp. These are the players that are struggling for chances like fish struggle to breathe out of water; Luciano Becchio would simply be starved of the goal chances and shot assists by an underperforming midfield unit who play pretty tiki-taka toe-poke passing but with very little impetus to get the ball up to the top shelf of the field.

So, unlike a lot of Leeds fans who probably see Luciano Becchio as some kind of talismanic prodigal son who will waltz back into the club and provide the armaments and weaponry that will fire us away from the predicament we find ourselves sadly in, I see him as an option that simply isn't a tenable one. It's alright having the weapons at your disposal but who in this Leeds team at present is going to supply the ammunition?

Like I said right at the head of this article, it's never the same second time around because love is a great deceiver and blinder of people's eyes and perceptions.