David Woods

Sat 15 February 2020 14:11, UK

Marcelo Bielsa has confirmed his Leeds United starting XI for the Championship game against Bristol City at Elland Road on Saturday afternoon – and plenty of fans are puzzled about what’s happened to new signing Ian Poveda.

After making the bench for the first two games after being signed, he’s been dropped for the last two games. And there’s no sign of him again today.

Patrick Bamford leads the line looking for his 13th goal of the season, after blanking in the last three games.

At the other end, Kiko Casilla is in goal for what could be his last game for Leeds for a while if, as expected, he gets banned in an FA hearing for racist abuse next week.

Jean-Kevin Augustin makes the bench for the third game in a row – he’s played 33 minutes of senior football for Leeds so far without a goal.

The team news was announced on the official Leeds United Twitter page ahead of the 3pm kick-off.

There was no major surprise at the starting XI – that was expected.

However, fans are starting to talk about Poveda and his continued absence, with one fan saying, “Poveda turning down first-team football in Italy to not even make our bench… those rumours are building.”

Another fan said that he’d heard Poveda was turning up to training late but we need to stress that we’ve not heard that from any verified source.

What we can say is that Bielsa was asked about Poveda not making the squad and he said he wanted two attackers, midfielders and defenders on his bench.

That’s fine but with Roberts out against Brentford, Jordan Stevens was selected ahead of Poveda. And we really don’t know why.

Here are the best reactions to Poveda not making the 18 from Leeds fans…

https://twitter.com/jcourts1991/status/1228682611838652416

https://twitter.com/LukeFazz24_/status/1228681005583785984

https://twitter.com/ben080385/status/1228683211561152513

In other Leeds United news, ‘He will leave’ – Exclusive: Pundit makes claim about Leeds ace with cut-price release clause