The Sky Bet Championship returns from the international break on Friday evening when two Yorkshire outfits battle it out at Elland Road when promotion chasers Leeds United and Sheffield United meet in a big clash.
Sheffield United have played out the opening nine games of the season without losing while Leeds are battling hard to make their way to the top of the table so there is going to be quality across the board throughout this match.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Football channels with the build-up at Elland Road beginning at 7pm ahead of the 8pm kick off.
Leeds United
Leeds United have made a solid start to the season even if they would have liked a couple more wins to their name. When you consider that they lost out in the play-off final last term and then lost some big players ahead of the campaign, this could easily have been a period of struggle for Daniel Farke and his men but they have only lost one of their nine matches and are in a position to push on over the coming weeks when you would imagine it will start to click.
Injuries are beginning to mount up for Leeds though and that is a concern as we head into a particularly challenging few weeks in terms of midweek matches coming thick and fast. The Whites will want to make Elland Road a bit of a fortress to get them through this testing fixture list and a win here would certainly make their intentions known. There are goals in this Leeds side but as we saw at the Stadium of Light last time out there are gaffes in them as well.
Sheffield United
When you consider how abject and terrible Sheffield United were in the Premier League last season, they deserve an enormous amount of credit for being able to start this campaign in the positive fashion which they have done. They are unbeaten after nine matches and had it not been for the point deduction they went into the season with they would be top of the table. To go from conceding five in a game more often than not to just three goals in nine games is an incredible achievement.
If there is a criticism of Sheffield United in the early part of the season it would be that they have only scored 12 goals in their nine matches but it isn’t a dig that I am prepared to throw at them because they clearly had to spend so much time in the pre-season repairing the damage that was routinely done to their defence last season that the attacking play was always going to struggle in comparison. Now that Chris Wilder has made them defensively sound again you would expect the attacking output to increase quickly over the coming weeks.
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Team News
Leeds United are expected to have Daniel James and Manor Solomon back from injury for this one although the former might only be fit for a spot on the bench. Brendon Aaronsen is likely to miss out after arriving back late from international duty.
Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder will assess Harry Souttar before this match after he was playing in Australia earlier in the week. If he isn’t good to go then Jack Robinson could get a recall. Harrison Burrows and Gustavo Hamer are expected to start having began the game with Luton on the bench.
Betting
This feels like a big game in the Championship season. These two are currently the two title favourites and I fancy we might get a tight and tense match as a result of that. Sheffield United are proving very hard to beat with a defence which has gone from leaking like a sieve last season to being watertight and stubborn this term. When you add in the emotion many of the Blades players will be playing with after the tragic passing of George Baldock, Chris Wilder’s men will be hard to beat.
Leeds aren’t very easy to beat at Elland Road but under Daniel Farke, Leeds United and big matches haven’t always been the perfect combination. Six of the nine Leeds matches this season have been under 2.5 goals while eight of the nine Sheffield United ones have gone under 2.5 too. You would think the Leeds keeper Ilian Meslier will be determined to keep a clean sheet here after his gaffe against Sunderland while Michael Cooper has made a huge difference between the sticks for the Blades. Between them in 18 matches this season these two have conceded just 10 goals and it is hard to see this one exploding beyond 2.5 goals.
Tips
Back Under 2.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
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