At dirty Leeds, all about approach and some match facts

Sorry for lack of activity on a match day, but I’ve just landed in my third country of the day and I’m going to be leaving for my fourth in a minute, so I’m getting this out quick.

The quicker this post gets out the quicker I get to the pub. If interested, I just landed in Belfast and I’m heading north for a weekend in Donegal. Should be fun.

Enough about me, it’s match day and I have to hold my hands up and say I’m not as confident tonight as I have been the past few weeks. There is going to come a time when we don’t win again and tonight isn’t going to be easy.

I made a comment to someone this week that for us to win tonight, we’re going to need to have a proper go at Leeds and I’m not convinced that that is something Steve Bruce will try.

Let me put it another way, I think it’s the only way we’re going to win against them and I’m not sure Steve Bruce will send them out like that despite the confidence we should be playing with and the fact that Leeds will be wary of us.

But I could be wrong. We’ll find out soon. Kick off is 7.45pm and by then I’m hoping I’m in a pub showing the match or wherever it is I’m staying has decent WiFi.

Match facts, thanks BBC

• Leeds have only lost one of their last nine league games against Aston Villa (W4 D4), a 2-0 defeat at Villa Park in the 2003-04 season, when they were relegated from the Premier League.
• This is only the third meeting between the sides at Elland Road outside the top flight - both sides have one victory each, Villa winning 3-1 in 1987-88 and Leeds winning 2-0 last season.
• Ezgjan Alioski could become the first Leeds United player since Ross McCormack in September 2011 to score in five consecutive league appearances for the club.
• Steve Bruce has visited Elland Road six times previously as a manager, each time facing a different manager (Terry Venables, Peter Reid, John Carver, Neil Warnock, Steve Evans and Garry Monk); Bruce has won two and lost four of those games, losing the most recent two, both in December with Hull (2015) and Villa (2016).
• Leeds have faced the other five sides currently in the top six of the Championship this season and lost four of those matches (W1), accounting for half of their total defeats this season.
• Since failing to score in his first 21 away Championship matches for Aston Villa, Albert Adomah has scored five goals in his last six - however, he has never scored in six Championship appearances at Elland Road.