Leeds have a number of players back for tomorrow’s trip to Northampton Town, while Mc.Allister has proved a harder task-master than we might have thought.
Rui Marques has come back from the African championship after playing all four of Angola’s games during the tournament, and could well go straight back into the side tomorrow to face Northampton Town. Tresor Kandol is expected to return after missing the Tranmere game through illness, and Casper will be back in goal as he has recovered from his hip problem. But Frazer Richardson and Neil Kilkenny will be out with ankle and groin injuries respectively.
Gary Mc.Allister has now completed his first full week in charge, and has ensured his squad have put in some hard work on the training ground. We were led to believe that Wise had been a stickler for ensuring his players were physically fit, but the official site claims that Macca has taken this on to another level. He said “the harder you work and the more professional you are, the more things will go for you. We've lifted the tempo and people are starting to see what we're looking for. Now we've got to get the balance between performance and results.”
After the Tranmere defeat he brought the player in on Sunday and he told the Yorkshire Post that the extra training would help to bring back our form and confidence. "It's been affected because we've had a bad run of results. But we've got to snap out of it, and losing yourself in hard work is the way I did it over the years as a player. You keep working away, and it will come back”. Turning to tomorrow’s game he said “It's going to be a battle. They will be well organised and competitive and we have to match that. I've got loads of good memories of winning away from home with Leeds and of the away support. I know we will be well backed and I want to give fans something to shout about."
As far as the Cobblers are concerned, midfielder Giles Coke could be back from a knee injury and defender Mark Little plays the final game of his loan spell while striker Adebayo Akinfenwa and defender Chris Doig are both short of match fitness. They’re not kidding, Akinfenwa’s picture on their official website makes him look a little bit on the tubby side. Northampton put up a poor performance at Leeds last month, but manager Stuart Gray was determined there won’t be a repeat performance tomorrow, and he was quoted on the site as saying…
“We've shown before that we are capable of bouncing back against clubs who have beaten us heavily and hopefully that'll be the case again on Saturday. We need to come out of the traps quickly on Saturday and we need to put Leeds under pressure from the word go. We will respect them but we won't fear them and if we're at it and maybe get a little bit of the rub of the green as well hopefully we'll get a result. We want to start the game quickly so we can get the crowd going and we are playing well at home at the moment so we will go into the game full of confidence.”
You need to get there early tomorrow, as the kick-off won’t be delayed, no matter how many fans are still stuck outside. So let’s hope there is no major transport delay that could result in fans being held up through no fault of their own. As far as a prediction is concerned, I’m going to stick my neck out and predict a Leeds win by the odd goal.