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Looking ahead to the Yorkshire Derby – the match preview

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After three wins in a week for Leeds United the mood at Elland Road is positive and next up is a home game against Yorkshire rivals Huddersfield Town. The last time Leeds won four league games on the bounce was in November 2009, the season we won promotion from League One.

Huddersfield find themselves five points behind the Whites in the Championship table, sitting 18th on 42 points. They’ve won just four games out of fifteen so far in 2016 (which probably means they’ll beat us on Saturday).

They certainly aren’t out of the relegation battle by any means so they’ll certainly be up for this, we’ve just got to make sure we are too. It looks as if there’ll be a decent crowd at Elland Road with the South Stand already sold out and other area’s are limited judging by the official website. It should certainly be a good atmosphere so hopefully the Leeds players can respond in a positive manner.






Previous games

Leeds are currently on a four game winning streak over Huddersfield, with their last defeat to the Terrier’s coming in a 3-2 defeat back in October 2013. Here’s a couple of recent results we’ve picked out!

The last Elland Road meeting…

In Huddersfield’s last visit to Elland Road, a rampant Leeds ran away with a 3-0 victory. Rodolph Austin opened the scoring with a thunderous strike, Mirco Antenucci doubled Leeds’ lead just moments before half-time with a rebound finish after a quick counter-attack. Souleymane Doukara wrapped things up with a nice low curling effort.

Gaetano Berardi was unsurprisingly sent-off for two bookable offences but Leeds managed to hold on with ease to take the Yorkshire bragging rights.

Earlier this season…

A game that will be remembered for an absolute wonder strike from Alex Mowatt, Leeds again cruised to a 3-0 victory over their Yorkshire rivals. Mirco Antenucci opened the scoring in the fifth minute of first-half injury time after a nice move and cross from Stuart Dallas, Chris Wood doubled the Whites advantage just two minutes later after Antenucci turned provider. Mowatt’s strike came just nine minutes into the second half as he jumped onto a loose ball before striking from the best part of 35 yards.






How will United line up?

It’s a dilemma for Steve Evans, stick with Doukara and Antenucci or bring back Chris Wood? For me, you’ve got to stick with a winning team, so I’d continue with the two in-form strikers. Antenucci has scored four in his last three including a great curling effort in Leeds’ last Elland Road outing – a 2-1 victory over Bolton. Doukara has been more of a support striker for Antenucci. His hold-up play is decent and he can beat defenders with relevant ease when he’s on form. Wood has just returned from injury, he played the last 5 minutes in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Blackburn and also featured for an hour in a 3-2 behind-closed-doors friendly defeat to Peterborough on Tuesday.

Apart from that, I wouldn’t make any other changes. Like I said you can’t really change a winning team. Luke Murphy was unlucky to be dropped after a decent performance against Cardiff, so he may well return to the starting line-up, probably in place of Diagouraga. I’m not a fan of playing two holding-midfielders at home when you should be the team in control of the game, so I’d probably go with the more forward-thinking Murphy.

My line-up would be as follows: Silvestri; Berardi, Bamba, Bellusci, Taylor; Bridcutt; Cook, Murphy, Mowatt; Antenucci, Doukara.






My prediction

I think we’ll win on Saturday. I’ve never been an optimistic Leeds fan but results and performances haven’t been bad recently and Huddersfield are on a poor run of form. I’m going to go with a 2-1 Leeds win, with goals from Antenucci and another Mowatt screamer. Watch this space!

Let us know your score and goalscorer predictions for the game?

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