please log in to view this image Leeds United v Burnley 14th September@12:30pm | Elland Road Leeds face their toughest opponent of the season so far, as Burnley make the hour long trip across the Pennines, coming up against a rejuvenated Leeds side. After starting their 24/25 campaign in underwhelming fashion, successive 2-0 victories over Yorkshire rivals Sheffield Wednesday and Hull City see Daniel Farke's side climb to fourth in the table, two places and a point below the Whites. It has been a challenging Summer for both sides, having lost instrumental players. There will undoubtedly be teething issues as they search for their best starting XI. The International break does little to help any side, but in Leeds case, they only had 12 senior players turn up for training in the past fortnight! With Junior Firpo not expected back back until late on Friday, Isaac Schmidt out with a calf injury and Max Wober picking up a fresh knee ailment whilst on International duty with Austria, Daniel Farke may opt to give Sam Byram his first league start of the season. Dan James is still nursing a hamstring injury, but have the luxury of Manor Solomon and Largie Ramazani to call upon in wide positions. Patrick Bamford may be wearing the No9 shirt, but in most people's eyes, Matteo Joseph has done enough to lead the line for Leeds this season. Nethertheless, Bamford should be fit enough for the bench on Saturday. Wilfred Gnonto took a knock for the Italian U21's during their 7-0 annihilation of San Marino, but is expected to be passed fit. After an explosive start to the season, with back-to-back victories and nine goals scored, the Clarets lost at Sunderland, were knocked out of the League Cup and only drew at home against Blackburn. They now have a centre-back crisis, with Hjalmar Ekdal, Jordan Beyer, and Maxime Esteve all expected to miss the trip to Elland Road. Dutch attacking Midfielder Zian Flemming also remains out with a calf strain.
I felt Hull was going to be a good test, the first of two hard local matches at home. Burnley is a step up now, and with the new players having had time to settle in you would hope we are up for it, if we are serious about the automatics, then it is a game where we have got to look at taking three points. James is out injured so a good game to start one if not both the new wide players. Were the Burnley players really injured before the break, it will be interesting to see how many return for this one
How have the new players had time to settle, nearly the entire first team have been on international duty?
Great to be getting back to real footie, just hope I can catch the match, as roasting out here in Turkey(no pun intended). Reckon this’ll test us, I hate playing top sides straight after the break. Hope we smash em. MOT.
They really need to get rid of the 12.30 kick off, rarely produces a good game, but particularly after an international break.
Let's see how the international break affects the team this time. Would be great to see us build on the Hull game.
Ai predicted scoreline for this fixture are as follows : ChatGPT - Leeds United 2 - Burnley 1 Google Gemini - Leeds United 1 - Burnley 1 ( Gemini also stated that either side may win by 1 goal, so real helpful ) Aski AI - Leeds United 4 - Burnley 0
Burnley supposed to be decimated with injuries. If that’s the case we should see just how good Parker is as a coach. If hes as good as some think he should be able to counter FarkeBall
I’m aware of buying corporate spin but personally I think you have to credit kinnear for fronting up and I think most of the answers are credible. I don’t have a problem with him tbh like some and think he comes across pretty well considering he needs to navigate some choppy waters. Personally I think they should have pushed him more on the quality of the signings… he wanted ‘here and now’ signings which I agree with in our current situation… so yes we bought slightly older players (further along their development curve) but in several cases they were from lower leagues unproven in this country. Whilst I agree with his argument that it’s tough to break into the prem and get established, kinnear needs to accept that Bournemouth, forest, Brentford, villa Brighton have all managed it recently. They’ve generally needed a slice of luck at times to do it, but it’s not impossible and for a club of our resources not getting there and staying there is failure. Finally, whilst the stadium ‘announcement’ might be laughably ‘coming soon’ for 6 years or whatever… at least he had the self awareness to take the p*ss out of himself for it.
