Leeds United come into this important fixture on the back of their worst performance this season. That came last Friday night against a relegation-threatened QPR, Daniel Farke’s side trounced 4-0 in London.
It is a must-win game for the Whites if they want to even entertain the thought of automatic promotion to the Premier League.
Ipswich Town are in the driving seat, courtesy of their midweek win over Coventry City. This victory sees the Tractor Boys 2nd in the Championship table and only needing to avoid defeat to earn a well-fought promotion. They play a struggling Huddersfield Town outfit who are all but relegated to League One.
It will be a bear pit Elland Road that welcomes Russell Martin’s Saints to West Yorkshire. Southampton sit a place and six points behind a somewhat struggling Leeds United side.
The Saints will be playing in the play-offs and this tie could be a dress rehearsal for a game with even higher stakes if they both end up finishing in the top six.
The reverse fixture saw Daniel Farke’s side resoundingly beaten on the south coast, going down 3-1 after a horror display in the opening half.
Here we look at five players who could dictate the result of today’s game between Leeds United and Southampton…
Crysencio Summerville
Dutch flyer Summerville has been kept relatively quiet over recent Leeds United games. He’s not been able to show his dominance or exert any sustained pressure. Nevertheless, his tally of 19 goals and nine assists this season saw him awarded the Championship Player of the Year gong.
Even when relatively quiet and subdued, Summerville is always capable of something.
It will be hard against a well-drilled team like Southampton. However, he will want to finish the regular season on a high and add to his impressive goal tally
Adam Armstrong
If Leeds United are going to get anything out of this game, they are going to have to have Armstrong under lock and key. The dual-threat forward has 20 goals and 13 assists to his name.
Armstrong could be more than a dangerous player against a creaking Whites defensive unit. He could be the player who keeps the Whites out of the automatic promotion places, so it will be interesting to see how Farke’s side deal with him.
Georginio Rutter
Mercurial forward Rutter is another of Leeds United’s frontline that has suffered a drop in both form and sparkle at the wrong time. However, the skillset that he has means that he remains a danger against a Southampton side that do wobble at the back.
Playing in the number 10 position, much of United’s best passages of play are worked through him. He has a killer through ball so Saints defenders will need to be on their toes all afternoon at Elland Road.
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