Leeds United certainly made a mug out of me upon my declaration that they should win at Southampton after four Saints defeats on the spin, writes DAVID PRUTTON.
The pressure wasn’t necessarily on Southampton boss Russell Martin, but they weren’t exactly covering themselves in glory. They had a very porous defense and I thought Leeds would do well.
But apart from a small glimmer in Pascal Struijk’s second-half goal, I thought Southampton suited up with a 3-1 win at St Mary’s last weekend. Sometimes you can experience such unusual results and performances. But the good thing about championships is that you only have to wait a few days and then you can put it back. Leeds had that chance on Wednesday night when they hosted Queens Park Rangers. If the Whites had any ambitions of automatic promotion, they needed to get rid of a QPR team in real trouble, which they did.
This is just the marathon type nature of what the season is. There’s going to be good weeks, bad weeks, good games, terrible games, good results and poor results.
Leeds faced a Southampton team who would be very much in that promotion conversation and didn’t cover themselves in glory as they got nothing from it. They had to dust themselves off and go again and they did that but now they have got another tough game this weekend at home to Bristol City.
Leeds are already nine points behind second-placed Ipswich Town and 11 adrift of leaders Leicester City and if eyes are on the automatic promotion places then Leeds absolutely cannot fall too far behind. There’s different dynamics at work with Leicester and Ipswich.
Ipswich have got that wonderful wonderful momentum that comes with promotion and I think that their boss Kieran McKenna is doing an unbelievable job so far.
And I think Leicester’s squad is better than Leeds’ – even allowing for how good the Leeds squad is and the players that they have got and bought and invested in and the slight changes in the squad.
The Whites have got players that can change games but there has been absolutely no hangover in how Leicester have attacked the season at all barring losing to Hull City. They have just got on with it and won delightfully and won ugly. They are putting a real marker down and ten games is a nice enough sample size.
But there are also teams without perhaps that same level of expectation such as Preston who are up there and Sunderland who got into the playoffs last season. They are still a very young team but a very attractive team in what they are doing. It also won’t be lost on Leeds that there is Carlos Corberan at West Brom doing better again. They were struggling but they have got a very, very good squad.
There’s no hiding place. Ipswich are on 25 points and you look back to Leeds on 16. Nine points is a big gap at this moment in time. But it is ‘at this moment in time.’ Leeds are ten games in but there are still another 36 left to hunt them down.
Today’s visitors Bristol City have some good young players such as Tommy Conway who was brought off the bench in Wednesday night’s 2-1 win at Rotherham United and made a difference. They have got a good mixture under boss Nigel Pearson.
The Robins had to bounce back from back to back defeats so Nigel made changes and he got exactly what he would want from a change of personnel with a sub coming on and scoring two goals to win them the game.
They have got an energy about them and I am sure they will be looking forward to coming to Elland Road. Elland Road has got to play its part as it always does. That’s a big tick in the box that is always there – the fans will be loud and they will be noisy and they will be intimidating.
But I think you will see a Bristol City side that is well up for the challenge and this is another game that Leeds have got to win to get to where they want to be come the end of the season. They have got to go into this expecting the three points but we all know that sometimes the gap between expectation and delivery can be quite vast.
Whites boss Daniel Farke kept an unchanged side for the Southampton game following the impressive win against Watford but then made four changes after the Saints reverse for Wednesday night’s QPR clash. Captain Liam Cooper was one of those to drop to the bench but he seems to be balanced enough to know that you have good days and bad days and that you are at the mercy of what the manager wants.
Joe Rodon instead came into the team to partner Pascal Struijk at centre-back next to Luke Ayling and Sam Byram as full backs and that’s an extremely experienced back line. Leeds didn’t quite steamroller QPR – nor do they have a divine right to do so – but it certainly wasn’t backs to the walls at any time.
Then you have got the youthful operating in midfield of Archie Gray and Ethan Ampadu and there is enough there to go again unchanged I would think – plus Patrick Bamford is back as an option too now which is also always a nice touch.
