Leeds United will be trying to bounce back from their disappointing performance at Watford, where they dropped points for just the second time in 2024, when they play Hull City this evening.
Whether it was for Leeds or any of their three other automatic promotion rivals, the Championship promotion race seemed sure to take unexpected turns over the Easter weekend.
Defeat for Leicester City and a draw for Southampton meant that Leeds were fairly certain to remain in the automatic promotion places no matter what occurred against Watford.
Leeds struggle through poor showing to claim point at Watford with injury-hit side
Against a spirited and competitive Watford team on Friday, Leeds was clearly second best for much of the match. Mateo Joseph, a substitute, tied the score in the 85th minute to give Leeds a point.
It followed a very taxing international break for the Leeds team, during which Wales played 120 minutes three days earlier and several players, including the starting three Willy Gnonto, Connor Roberts, and Ilia Gruev, returned to West Yorkshire with injuries.
Gnonto and Roberts were both given three weeks off, as none of the three were well enough to make the trip to Vicarage Road.
Ilia Gruev not in Leeds squad tonight v Hull – Confirmed
Looking ahead to the match against the Tigers tonight, it appears that Leeds’ roster won’t be in much better shape in terms of availability.
The full roster for the match has been made public by LeedsLive, and Charlie Crew will start in place of Gruev.
Meslier, Darlow, Klaesson, Gray, Rodon, Firpo, Byram, Cooper, Cresswell, Shackleton, Ampadu, Kamara, James, Crew, Summerville, Anthony, Bamford, Piroe, Rutter, Gelhardt, Joseph.
Injuries aren’t ideal for this promotion run-in
With every team playing a difficult match in the top four, today might be extremely important in the promotion battle.
Our task of defeating Hull at home is formidable, but Southampton and Ipswich will play each other, and Leicester will play an arguably superior team in Norwich.
If all goes according to plan, we could be in first place and ahead by a respectable margin of fourth.
But before anything else, we should just take care of what we can accomplish and not worry about what other people could be doing.
