Leeds United have made preparations for Championship title lift and just need deserved next step
Leeds United will welcome Championship leaders Leicester City to
Elland Road tonight after a run of results that has given them every
chance of awakening a title race
Leeds United have put themselves in an
incredible position to take a shot at the Championship titleÂ
Daniel Farke is correct. After 33 games, Leicester City has to be regarded as the
finest team in the division and the clear favorite to win the title. The league table
never lies. But Leeds United has created an opportunity for itself to take a
chance no one could have predicted.
On the drive back from Southampton at the end of September, it seemed like too
many points had already been lost. It wasn’t quite United bombing, but rather
Leicester’s relentlessness. Win, win, victory, victory. With the exception of a
few sporadic glitches, Enzo Maresca’s side has seemed as inevitable as taxes
and death.
Whenever we went into a media suite after Leeds dropped points, Soccer
Saturday just seemed to ram home three points to the Foxes every time. If the
title had been long since forgotten about, automatic promotion had been
all but written off in the press box at The Hawthorns as 2023 died away.
Whatever the circumstances, one win in five, with Leicester and Southampton
marching on, did not feel anywhere near good enough to consider clawing
back second place. And yet, Farke has overseen a 2024 counter-strike nobody
could have expected.
Since the turn of the year, Leeds have taken eight points out of Leicester and
Southampton, as well as nine out of
Ipswich Town. It’s the kind of run they had to put together to even make this
late charge a possibility.
Farke could not have hand-picked a better time, after the club’s best winning
streak in 92 years, to welcome the division’s best side to Elland Road – their
impregnable fortress. Everything is set, almost suspiciously so, for Leeds to
make this a run-in for the ages. Nobody has handed this to them, they have
earned it, fought for it and they absolutely deserve a pop at the top
prize.
Their merits are highlighted by their lopsided victory at Leicester and their
double over Ipswich, which included the crushing defeat in December. Even
though Southampton beat them badly in September and the table doesn’t lie, it’s
hard to dismiss the possibilities that seem to be there.
It won’t be easy and, surely, they cannot win every game between now and May,
while Leicester, even with a lead trimmed to six points, will remain the
strong title favourites, but it’s there for the Whites and for the Elland Road
faithful. The platform has been built in 2024, now they need to go and take that
final chance to hit the leaders and make this the run-in they deserve.
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