Blackburn (A): Preview

Leeds pop over the Pennines for a lunchtime meeting against Blackburn Rovers today. I assumed the match was on Sky, but not so, and it is the police that have requested an early kick-off with 7,000 Leeds fans piling into Ewood Park. It will be more like a home game for Leeds with one end packed out with Whites fans and it will be the new Leeds away kit that has the focus of our attention, the brilliant third strip in pink will cast aside all doubts about which team is the visitor. I love that new kit but Leeds, strangely enough, have been unable to win in anything but the white kit for a long time now and playing in an away kit has become a hoodoo that needs laying to rest.

This anomaly is not quite as bizarre as the new record set for being drawn away in the FA Cup the most times consecutively since the start of the  competition in the 1800s….13 times on the trot now and it is Peterborough  that Leeds must travel to in early January for the third round tie.

Blackburn have had a reasonably good season so far. They score plenty of goals but have a leaky defence and we may well be in for a goal fest tomorrow. Presumably Leeds will be unchanged again, Farke will only make changes when injury forces him to. Blackburn are chasing a playoff place and they are amongst a host of clubs chasing 5th and 6th positions. Leeds and the other two relegated sides, Leicester and Southampton, together with Ipswich are drawing away from the pack.

With almost half the season gone Ipswich are showing no signs of coming back to the field and they continue to set a blistering place behind Leicester. I now have doubts creeping in regarding auto promotion for Leeds. I still think they are the best in the league but the early season stuttering start in Aujust meant they were slow out of the stalls and need to hang on to the coat tails of the two sides in front of them.

Szmodics is the leading scorer in the Championship having scored 14 times already for Blackburn and he will be a big threat for Leeds. I expect DJ Ed Spence to get some playing time as the game progresses, we need to see how he plays and I want to see how much Archie Gray has improved as a midfield player having done so well playing out of his normal position, standing in at right back for most of the season so far.

This looks another tricky game for Leeds and we are under pressure to keep on winning and to not lose ground in this relentless race for promotion. A draw will of course be satisfactory but Leeds have another difficult game coming up in midweek, away to Sunderland, and one win at least has to be a minimum expectation from these two away games before the mad Xmas rush of fixtures is upon us.

By David Dean