LEEDS STILL WAITING ON RODGERS PERMIT

Championship side Leeds United have secured the signature of American striker Robbie Rogers and manager Simon Grayson wants to throw the forward into the mix of the Championship action as soon as the club secures his work permit.

The 24 year old had been trial with the Yorkshire club for quite some time now after the manager spotted him in the United States and brought him to England. The USA international striker had a four year spell with the Major League Soccer club the Columbus Crew for which he played 106 times in this period. Rogers is being seen as the solution to Leeds’ crisis of finding goals up front and is also being considered as a replacement for former striker Robbie Keane in the long term.

Rogers will not be able to take the field against fellow promotion hopefuls Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Saturday but the United management are hopeful that they will be able to secure a work permit for the player before the end of the month, by which time they will play against the likes of Ipswich Town and Birmingham City. The online football betting exchanges seem to think he will be available for the Ipswich game.

According to the Leeds manager Grayson, the American had been training with the club for the last couple of weeks and even went to the Emirates Stadium to attend the club’s FA Cup game against English Premier League giants Arsenal. Sadly the only winners that day were the ones who had a bet on Arsenal, but Grayson believes that Rodgers will have learnt a lot from the experience. He also added that the players and the management were excited at the potential of the striker and have high hopes for him and believe that he could fire the fallen English giants to glory and return them to the top tier of English Football.

Leeds United are fighting it out at the top of the Championship to secure promotion to the English Premier League after a gap of almost 6 years and the manager believes that Robbie Rogers is the player to take them back to the promised land.