Matthew Kilgallon completed his move to Sheffield United yesterday, although at one time it looked as though it might fall through.

The Blades postponed a 2pm press conference called to announce his signing and there were rumours there might be a problem because of the ankle injury he picked up against Sunderland on Boxing Day.

But the deal finally went through at tea time, Sheffield United paying £1.75m, rising to £2m on appearances. Leeds will also get 20 per cent of the profit if he is sold on to another club.

A product of Leeds's youth system, 'Killa' played 95 times for the club.

He is the almost the last of the crown jewels' upon which the club's future was once said to hang and follows other academy graduates like Simon Walton, Paul Robinson, Scott Carson and Aaron Lennon to Premiership clubs in recent years.

With Sheffield United joining Watford in the chase for David Healy, the big transfer stories at Leeds United are still more about departures than signings.

Having given up hope of signing Preston striker David Nugent, Blades boss Neil Warnock is keen to prise Healy away from Elland Road to link up once again with former Leeds team-mates Ian Bennett, Rob Hulse and Matthew Kilgallon.

Since the transfer window opened, Leeds manager Dennis Wise has added full back Armando Sa and striker Tore Andre Flo to his squad and agreed long-term deals on Matt Heath, Hayden Foxe and Tresor Kandol, who were already in the squad.

Kilgallon's £1.75m move to Bramall Lane is the only sale so far, but the contracts of Paul Butler and Sean Gregan have been terminated and loan players Tony Warner, Geoff Horsfield and Ugo Ehiogu have gone back to their clubs.

This leaves Wise with a wafer thin squad ahead of Saturday's visit to league leaders Birmingham City, including only three central defenders, none of whom are in top form.

With on-loan keeper Graham Stack out injured, Neil Sullivan is the only fit senior keeper, while full back Gary Kelly only started his comeback from a long lay-off in the reserves yesterday, and striker Richard Cresswell and midfielder Gylfi Einarsson are still some way off a return.

Sitting just three points off the bottom and with gates dwindling, Leeds need a couple of signings that will excite the fans but assistant manager Gus Poyet admits it's not just a shortage of cash that's holding them back.

He said: "We might not be in a good position, but we are a big club, yet sometimes players want to think twice about coming here and we don't want that.

"We want players who want to come and help us and hopefully stay three or four years."