Key events
Leeds have got some tricky fixtures coming up after today: Manchester City (a), Chelsea (h), Liverpool (h). Daniel Farke could soon come under pretty significant pressure, as Louise Taylor has been writing this week:
Although Farke maintains “no one is panicking”, his team have lost four of their past five league games and sit 18th. While 11 points from 11 matches is hardly disastrous for a promoted side, December looks a potentially dangerous month in West Yorkshire with Chelsea and Liverpool visiting Elland Road. Leeds also have to make a tricky trip to Manchester City before November is out. Lose those and Farke knows his position would, perhaps unfairly, come under serious scrutiny. How a toothless Leeds could do with reprising their last win against Villa, a 3-0 triumph at Villa Park in October 2020. It featured a Patrick Bamford hat-trick, but with injuries subsequently disrupting the forward’s career the former Leeds No 9 is now on a short-term deal at Sheffield United and Farke has struggled to find an incisive, elite-level replacement.
Ollie Watkins has never scored against Leeds in 12 appearances (including 11 starts) against them for Villa and Brentford across the Premier League and Championship.
His involvement at next summer’s World Cup looks in doubt after he was left out of Thomas Tuchel’s latest England squad. He’s only got one goal in 16 games for Villa this season in all competitions.
John McGinn should be full of beans today after his involvement in Scotland’s successful, and quite frankly ridiculous, World Cup qualifying campaign.
Amid Scott McTominay’s acrobatics, Kieran Tierney’s accuracy and Kenny McLean’s audacity, McGinn was the driver of Scotland’s hopes in the middle of the park and forced both of Rasmus Kristiansen’s yellow cards against Denmark.
He knows his role in Unai Emery’s Villa team down to a tee, coming in off the right wing to support Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins. Emi Buendía does the same off the left. Leeds are going to have their work cut out against those two.
It’s a busy lunchtime in Yorkshire: Sheffield United lead Wednesday in the Steel City derby at Hillsborough. John Brewin has updates:
Form guide (last six): Leeds DLLWLL. Aston Villa WWWWLW.
Looks ominous for Leeds who, after a decent start, are being dragged into the relegation scrap they were perhaps expected to be part of in the first place. They dropped into the bottom three after yesterday’s results.
Villa are one of the form teams in the league. Unai Emery, talking to TV just now, says his team must keep improving having picked up five wins out of their last six. He cites their mentality and structure as key factors in the uptick in results and says he’s “very motivated” and “so, so excited” about what’s to come.
Starting lineups
Leeds (4-3-3): Perri; Bogle, Rodon, Struijk, Gudmundsson; Longstaff, Ampadu, Stach; Aaronson, Nmecha, Okafor.
Subs: Darlow, James, Calvert-Lewin, Piroe, Bijol, Tanaka, Justin,
Gnonto, Gruev.
Daniel Farke makes one change from the defeat to Nottingham Forest two weeks ago – Pascal Struijk comes in for Jaka Bijol at centre-back.
Aston Villa (4-4-1-1): Martínez; Cash, Konsa, Torres, Digne; McGinn,
Kamara, Tielemans, Buendía; Rogers; Watkins.
Subs: Bizot, Lindelöf, Barkley, Malen, Sancho, Maatsen, Bogarde, Guessand, Hemmings.
Villa also make just the one change from their last game – a 4-0 home defeat of Bournemouth – with Youri Tielemans in for the injured Amadou Onana in midfield.
Preamble
Two of English football’s grandest names face off at Elland Road this afternoon as Leeds host Aston Villa in the Premier League. Daniel Farke and Unai Emery meet in opposing dugouts for the first time in their careers and both will be looking for points they can put towards their diverging goals this season.
It’s a Championship meeting between these two teams that lingers most in the recent memory, with that controversial Mateusz Klich goal and Marcelo Bielsa then ordering his players to let Albert Adomah equalise for Villa straight from kick-off. Any drama that comes close to that today will keep us entertained.
Kick-off is at 2pm (GMT) and team news is coming right up. You can get in touch by email to offer your thoughts on the game or the season as a whole.
