Hull City vs Leeds United Bumper Preview!

Leeds looking to extend their winning run away from home and remain top: Hull City vs Leeds United preview

Leeds United travel to the MKM Stadium to take on a struggling Hull City side as the Whites look to remain at the top of the Championship.

Leeds will look to return to winning ways after drawing to Blackburn at Elland Road on New Year's Day in one of the flatter performances of the season at home.

After initially appearing to be a disappointing result, it was a point gained over promotion-chasing rivals Sheffield United who were defeated at the Stadium of Light by Sunderland.

Full-Back conundrum

As we all know from watching Leeds in this second season under Daniel Farke, both full-backs are crucial to how United attack.

During the Blackburn game, Bogle had to be replaced due to a dead leg, while Sam Byram was also brought off after suffering from exhaustion. He was replaced by Max Wober.

Going into the game against Hull City on Saturday, first-choice left-back Junior Firpo will still be unavailable due to injury, but Farke hopes to have Bogle available and Byram is also expected to be involved.

In his pre-match press conference, Farke provided an update on Firpo’s injury.

“He’s more or less in the final stages of his rehab, he’s not in team training yet but I hope pretty quickly after Hull he can return to team training if everything works out. I expect him to be back available after the FA Cup game, perhaps even for that.” Farke said.

With this in mind, it would seem to make sense for Wober and Bogle to be the full-back pairing going into the Hull game, particularly when you take into account how Wober was integral in the build-up to the penalty incident in the Blackburn game where Leeds uncharacteristically rarely troubled the opposition's goalkeeper.

Farke also seemed to be impressed with the impression that Wober made in the previous game. “I liked (Wober’s) performance in the second half,” Farke said.

“He looked sharp, had good chances, played a role for the penalty. I was a bit worried; I thought for 20- or 30 minutes Max could chip in but we couldn’t afford Sam Byram to play another 20 and he looked so exhausted. It was perhaps a bit risky to play Max for 45 but he’s an experienced player, I thought he could manage himself.” Farke said.

New manager, new result?

Ruben Selles will take charge of his seventh game as Hull City manager after taking over from Tim Walter who was sacked in November.

Selles has picked up 7 points across his first six games. The two wins Selles has managed are Hull’s only victories in their last 16 matches as they currently linger in the relegation zone.

Leeds ran out as 2-0 winners in the reverse fixture at Elland Road, but Daniel Farke expects a different challenge from Hull this time around.

“It’s always tricky when a new manager comes in and brings his new ideas and even after a few weeks perhaps you’ll see a few more changes,” Farke said.

“It will be a different Hull side in comparison to what we faced here at Elland Road but what is still the case is they have quality players; they have really good options in the offence.

Of course, they are disappointed with their start to the season but I’m pretty sure they will try to use this home game to win important points for them and we are aware that they will be a threat and like the last away games we have to be spot on,” Farke said.

Final predictions

Leeds look to have put their troubles away from home in the rearview mirror as of late with wins over Derby and Stoke in their most recent away games.

It will be interesting to see who Farke chooses to deploy in the attacking quartet in this match with Dan James arguably having his worst performance of the season against Blackburn with Joel Piroe also having a quiet game before Mateo Joseph replaced him and won a penalty.

Personally, I would start Joseph up front, with Manor Solomon, Brendan Aaronson and Willy Gnonto in behind him.

I predict Solomon and Joseph to get on the scoresheet in a 1-2 victory away from home for the Whites to extend our unbeaten run to 8 games.