Leeds United vs Sheffield Wednesday pre-match thoughts

By @Joe_Potter4

Being a fairly young Leeds United supporter, for me, Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday has become quite a rivalry over the last decade. Out of all the Yorkshire teams they are the only team that I actually have a large distaste for. I think this is due to them having a fairly decent record against us, taking (at the time my favourite Leeds player) Tom Lees from us, beating us 6-0 and making a DVD of the game, and generally just being arrogant and thinking they are a much bigger club than they are.

But what do I think is going to happen this Saturday? It goes without saying, this is a HUGE game, and a MUST win. Consistency has been detrimental for us recently, winning three of our last five, but losing two. Again, it goes without saying, the players need to be right up for this one, we can't expect the same lackluster Wednesday team that we faced in September, manager Steve Bruce has revitalised them, and when their season looked to be heading for an under-whelming lower mid-table finish, he has galvanised them and put them right in the mix for nicking a top 6 spot. They're usually well up for this game, so we need to turn Elland Road into a cauldron of noise like it was for West Brom a few weeks ago.

I am nervous going into this one, bit of a cliche, but anything can happen in a derby. Blades are playing a more than winnable game at home to Millwall, so three points is very much necessary. With less and less time in the season, we can't afford slip-ups like the ones we had at Birmingham and QPR.

Wednesday are a talented team with a wealth of experience, but if players such as Hernandez, Klich and Roberts are firing on all cylinders, then there's no reason we can't get at their defense. If Jansson and Cooper play well and are resolute at the back and we can control the midfield against the likes of Adam Reach, Barry Bannan and Sam Hutchinson, then I reckon we can really exploit their defense.

How will the players be feeling? They'll be okay I think, Preston away was a sound performance and it was important we managed to keep a clean sheet. I think there has been a few games at home where the occasion has got to us a bit, maybe we have hyped up the game too much, and we started to play the occasion not the game, Norwich and Sheffield United at home come to mind. However, I do believe we truly deserved something more from that Blades game. I think that the players will have learnt from that Sheffield United game and we can keep calm and really put Wednesday to the sword, wouldn't that be nice?

For this one, I'm predicting a 1-0 Leeds win, goal coming from Kalvin Phillips.

MOT!