Ricketts Completes Leeds Move

Last updated : 23 June 2004 By Mark Heys
Michael Ricketts
Former Bolton Wanderers forward Michael Ricketts has completed a move to Coca Cola Championship League side Leeds United on a three year deal from Middlesbrough.

Ricketts has had an unhappy time on Teeside with Boro since his £2,500,000 move from Bolton eighteen months ago scoring just three times in thirty three league appearances and will now begin life as a Leeds player following the successful conclusion of negotiations and a medical earlier today. No fee has been disclosed for the former Walsall man with some areas of the press speculating that the big forward has moved on a Free Transfer.

Leeds front man Mark Viduka, targeted for a move to Boro will not be moving to the Riverside Stadium for the time being at least as the Australian is still in talks with the Teesiders about a potential move.

The 25-year old Ricketts angered the Bolton public by the manner in which he handled his move from the club citing reasons of ambition for his departure from the Reebok Stadium. He helped the Trotters to promotion via the Play Offs in 2001 having scored 23 goals in his first full season with the club, the following season he was an integral part in a struggling Bolton team scoring 18 goals which lead to a solitary England cap in the friendly against Holland in February 2002. Rumours of a departure to Tottenham Hotspur lingered over the next twelve months with the London club offering numerous players in exchange in an effort to land Ricketts but no deal materialised due to Wanderers insistence on a £6 million plus cash deal. In the end the club where forced to accept a cut price 11th hour deadline bid from Boro who had also signed the Wanderers target Malcolm Christie.

Ricketts returned to the Reebok scoring Boro's consolation goal on the final day of the 2002-2003 season in a 2-1 Trotters win, a game which Bolton needed to win to stay in the Premiership but his appearances on Teeside thereafter tended to be more from the substitutes bench. He did feature in Boro's 2-1 Carling Cup Final success against the Wanderers as a late substitute but injuries and loss of form have lead to Steve McClaren cutting his losses and selling the player back to lower league football. Ricketts will join fellow new signings Julian Joachim, Danny Cadamarteri and Paul Butler at Elland Road as new manager Kevin Blackwell aims to build up his thin squad decimated by relegation from the Premier League.

What goes around.......comes around