David Beckham faces a grilling

David Beckham, who returned to Los Angeles this weekend to fulfil his commitment to LA Galaxy, is preparing himself for a series of hostile reception parties from fans and management of the club he signed with two years ago amid a lot of grandiose talk about making soccer a major sport in the US.

According to the Independent on Sunday, the first will be with Bruce Arena, the manager of LA Galaxy, on whom he walked out weeks before the start of the 2009 MLS [Major Lead Soccer] season. This followed a "time-share" agreement he negotiated with AC Milan, which saw him spend the first half of the year with the Italian club.

Second up will be Beckham's team-mates, who were left high and dry by his move and will use a new book to complain that he was an inadequate captain, and that considering his fortune he was surprisingly tight-fisted off the field.

That book, The Beckham Experiment by Grant Wahl, reveals that while his fellow players earned as little as $12,900 (8,000), compared to Beckham's basic wage of $6.5m, he refused to pick up the bill during team social events.

Thirdly, he must face the Galaxy fans, who are halfway through their third disappointing season since January 2007 when Beckham arrived on his lucrative, five-year deal. Instead of being an asset, he stuttered through two injury-ravaged campaigns, before spending several million dollars of his own money to buy his way out of the contract to play in Milan.

And he has not proved the draw at the gate they had hoped. Since his move, LA's attendances have been down 7,000 to around 19,000, the worst since 2002.

Fans writing on forums affiliated to Galaxy's website describe Beckham variously as a "bum" and a "limey idiot". One asked: "Do you think it would be appropriate to bring a Beckham scarecrow to his first home game back, and put the scarecrow in a noose?" ·