Good Morning. It's Friday 23rd October, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road...
Late team news and expected line up
Leeds have been boosted by the news that Kalvin Phillips shoulder injury was not as bad as first feared, as is expected back in first team action by 21st November when the Whites entertain the Gunners at Elland Road.
Unfortunately, that is where the good news stops! Leeds face a Villa side this evening with a 100% league record. This may not be surprising, when you see that Villa Manager Dean Smith has bought in Bertrand Traore from Lyon for 19m, Gunners keeper Martinez, also for 17m, highly rated right back Matty Cash from Forest FOR 16m, Ollie Watkins for 28m and England midfielder Ross Barkley on loan. Watkins alone has already netted five times this season. Like most Managers, the new signings made their league appearances as soon as they were bought - why Bielsa brings them in gradually is beyond me.
Leeds will be without Llovente, Phillips and most likely Cooper this evening. According to the Daily Express,
Pascal Struijk is likely to be moved to the holding midfield role, and for Luke Ayling to partner Koch at centre back. Dallas would then swap flanks with Alioski being bough in to cover at left back.
Villa Manager Dean Smith has talked for the first time about about the incident 16 months ago when Bielsa instructed his team to let Albert Adomah walk the ball into the ER net after Smith and John Terry has accused the Whites of unsportsmanlike conduct having scored whilst a Villa player injured himself trying to bring down a Leeds player.
Smith opens lid on fair play decision 16 months ago
"I had the utmost respect for him anyway. We'd qualified for the play-offs, as had Leeds. They still had an outside chance of getting automatic. There was a lot made of the incident, but there wasn't once it had been done from myself and Marcelo. We just felt it was the right decision.
A lot of people forget that just before, one of their players had gone down, we were attacking and Conor Hourihane put the ball out. He felt it was the right thing to do, and we did. "Obviously when Jonathan Kodjia went down we expected that to be reciprocated, it wasn't, and we all know the rest. We were very thankful Marcelo felt he wanted his team to give us the goal back for the integrity of the game.
You certainly don't always see that sort of thing. There was an awful lot of emotion on the pitch, from our bench, because of what had happened four minutes previous. It takes cool heads in those moments and he (Bielsa) certainly showed that. The three games I've had (against Bielsa) have been really competitive, and I expect the same again.
I think our role always as head coach, as players, is to try to create history for the club. There'll be people that'll say 'they've won four on the spin, they're not going to win any more', and 'they're not going to up in amongst the upper echelons'. The game, and life is always about looking to prove people wrong.
He (Phillips) was on a list of players we were interested in but as far as I was aware it never got past initial talks stages, with the price I think they wanted – and rightly so. It upsets our planning. We still don't know when the Arsenal game is going to be yet, which is only a couple of weeks away.
I'm not sure if the live games have been chosen yet for November, and then there's this new pay-per-view fixture listing as well. Unfortunately we have to sit and wait to find out when it is."
