BfB

The word is that Luke Beckett has agreed terms with City and is our second capture from those strange lot down the road in two days as Stuart McCall starts making a City team that can go up two divisions.

31 year old Beckett has been on his holidays with a contract in his back pocket that will run a year with another year if either side thinks things have gone well which usually means he is being paid a fair price and shows City’s aims this season. Promotion or rip it up and start again.

Beckett joins Chris Brandon in making the short but glorious trip from Huddersfield and as with Brandon he has been linked with City before with Colin Todd opting to sign Eddie Johnson rather than Beckett two years ago.

Beckett’s role in the team can be summed up as Barry Conlon with goals and we can expect to see him partnering Peter Thorne up front next season with Conlon and Billy Topp fighting for positions. As Conlon showed this year this is a league where scrapping is needed and Topp might have to wait 12 months until League One before he starts to be a regular.

Brandon is a hard working midfielder but he is not Stuart McCall’s new Stuart McCall so he has to be balanced with another box-to-box midfielder like which might be Lee Bullock but Hartlepool fans consider Bullock an attacking midfielder. Brandon could join the midfield on the left flank tucked in to balance out Joe Colbeck as a flying winger on the other side but perhaps Stuart will go with Bullock and Brandon with Kyle Nix on the left and Colbeck on the right.

It seems that as Stuart starts his signings City are getting options and perhaps the gaffer is going to go for four quality forwards, six quality midfielder and let the pieces fall into place rather than fixing his team in his mind in June as he has had to last year because of having too few quality players.