Leeds go into tonight’s match knowing a win will take them 11 points clear of Fulham in 7th, with the game against Fulham next Tuesday. Ever since Birmingham sacked Gary Rowett and replaced him with Zola, they’ve struggled massively, winning only 2 of their last 15 games. It shows how good Rowett was doing that they still find themselves comfortably above the relegation fight in 14th. However, unfortunately for Leeds, Birmingham did beat Wolves away in their last outing. We usually run into teams as they’re turning around their shocking form so this shouldn’t be a surprise, but if we want to win promotion we really need to win games like tonight.
Leeds are favourites with virtually every sportsbook tonight and rightly so, whichever 11 we start tonight they should have enough to turn Birmingham over. This is the team I personally would go with I feel like we need to see Barrow start a game after a long wait.
Birmingham’s top scorer Lukas Jutkiewicz, who has 11, is back in contention for tonight’s game, along with Jonathan Grounds and Jacques Maghoma, who have all been suffering with injuries. The thing with Birmingham is, they actually have a very decent team, the whole sacking Rowett for absolutely no reason thing just had a massive effect on the whole squad. They shouldn’t be taken lightly though, they’ve beaten us already this season and it’d be very Leeds to lose tonight too.
Chris Wood is favourite to score first unsurprisingly, the next best Leeds player is Kemar Roofe, followed by Pablo Hernandez. My prediction is that Leeds will finally play convincingly again, yes we’ve had some good wins like the Wednesday game, but we haven’t played really well since the Derby game, I think that will change tonight. I’m going for 3-0 Leeds with Wood, Hernandez and Pedraza to score off the bench.