A mid to bottom half table clash between Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds United at Elland Road, pride the only thing up for grabs. In all honesty if Leeds win and results at the bottom go against Sheffield Wednesday they could be dragged into the relegation scrap quickly, they’ve certainly been heading that way for a few months.
My XI
GK – Baily Peacock-Farrell – A brilliant start to his first-team games this season and judging on what we’ve seen he’ll almost certainly keep his place going forward, this season anyway. A decision most (including myself) were wondering if Heckingbottom would regret, certainly not!
RB – Gaetano Berardi – The full-back was the unlucky one who had to fave questions regarding Andrea Radrizzani’s comments about the squad, he’ll be up for this one more than usual.
CB – Pontus Jansson – Has been vocal about the sides form in recent weeks and he’ll want to put right the horror show from the away game at Wednesday.
CB – Matthew Pennington – If you needed a last ditch defender you’d call on him, but often he’s last ditch because he makes a basic error. Area needs addressing in summer, Pennington needs to keep his head tomorrow and relax a bit.
LB – Tom Pearce – It’s fair to say that Laurens De Bock hasn’t caught the imagination since arriving and it’s time we have Pearce a run, Heckingbottom rates him highly, get him involved.
R/L Wing – Pablo Hernandez – Nothing to lose tomorrow and for me we need two strikers, so Pablo and Saiz need to defend the wide areas, Pablo normally does anyway, and get on the ball wherever he can.
CM – Adam Forshaw – Here’s a star for you, Adam Forshaw has been involved in no wins since arriving at Leeds. The bizarre thing is that he’s arguably been the best player in that time, excluding maybe Pablo Hernandez. The lad needs a win.
CM – Ronaldo Vieira – Has drifted into a position where he struggles to get off the bench. Phillips and O’Kane have both been getting chances and been terrible, Vieira was poor but hasn’t started a game since Derby.
R/L Wing – Samu Saiz – His wonderful return peaked as he set up Alioksi at Derby, since then he looks a shadow of the player he was at the start of the season. Free role when attacking but he has to do the defensive work as well, it’s been missing.
ST – Pierre-Michel Lasogga – The way I see it now is that we only have two strikers, neither are great and both have good and bad attributes, so play them for a few games. Lasogga is the scorer of the two, by having Ekuban he can stay central.
ST – Caleb Ekuban – Quite clear he isn’t a “number 9” but he does have his plus points. We looked far more dangerous against Reading, mainly because they couldn’t push high up because of the pace Ekuban has in his locker. Let him run the channels, stretch Sheffield Wednesday.
