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Defender - Matt Heath
Heath began his career at his hometown club Leicester City, coming through the ranks to make his debut during the 2001/2001 season. He made over sixty appearances for the club scoring six goals and was part of the Foxes team that competed in the Premiership. Former manager Micky Adams took Heath to Coventry City in 2005 where he stayed for two seasons racking up 34 appearances and scoring 2 goals. Heath never really fulfilled his potential moving to Leeds on loan in November 2006 and was a regular in the side that was ultimately relegated to League 1. Still only 26, Heath is a classy centre half who was tipped for the top as a youngster at Leicester and Dennis Wise will be hoping that he will be able to get Heath to maintain his current form and help Leeds to promotion. He has played 36 times for United and scored 4 goals including one this season in the opening day win at Tranmere.
Midfield - Jonathan Douglas
I have picked Jonathan largely as he his links to the Gills, but make no mistake this lad can play. After failing to make the grade at Celtic, Irishman Douglas joined Blackburn Rovers as a youngster going on to play 43 times and score 4 goals in a stop start Rovers career. Most of his early appearances for Rovers were as a sub as the teenage midfielder struggled to establish himself as a regular, largely because he suffered a serious knee injury in 2001. After a brief loan spell at Chesterfield in 2002-03, Douglas at last established himself in the Blackburn first team squad during the 2003-04 season but fell out of favour a season later and ended up at Priestfield on loan. The Gills faithful were treated to 10 appearances in a blue shirt as we battled against the drop and we will not forget his all action displays and whole hearted endeavour, in what was ultimately a fight that was to end in failure. We should not forget but for the woodwork he would have kept Gills in League 1 after a pile driver hit the underside of the Cardiff bar and bounced out. He returned to Blackburn the following season and gained his first Irish cap against Poland but was loaned to the Whites in a season long deal in the 2005-06 season. He was a regular starter and notched 5 goals. The loan deal became permanent in 2006 and Douglas took over from the controversial Kevin Nicholls as skipper (although Alan Thompson now has the armband). In all Douglas has appeared 84 times in a Leeds shirt and scored 6 times.
Striker - Jermaine Beckford
Beckford failed to make the grade at Chelsea and dropped down to the non league with Wealdstone. Beckford scored 35 goals in 40 games which prompted a battle to secure his services. Leeds beat Palace, Charlton, Sunderland, Southampton and Watford to sign the Wealdstone youngster in March 2006. A lack of opportunities led him to be loaned to Carlisle in 2006 where he scored 1 goal in four games for the Cumbrians. He was again unable to cement a place in the Leeds team so Beckford was sent out on loan in January 2007 to Scunthrorpe for the remainder of the season. It was here that he started to show his undoubted talent scoring 8 goals in 17 starts and his prolific partnership with Billy Sharpe helped in no small way to the Iron being promoted to the Championship. Scunthorpe were desperate to secure his services on a permanent basis but his exploits had not gone unnoticed by Leeds and Wise and Poyet convinced him to stay. This has proved to be a wise decision (pun intended!) as 23 year old Beckford has scored 6 goals in 7 league starts for the Whites this season (more than all Gillingham players combined!).