MOT View: Bielsa to make key change for crunch game, JKA involved – Predicted Leeds XI v Forest
Leeds United travel to the City Ground on Saturday for the late kick-off and it’s the first of two absolutely massive games in four days.
Nottingham Forest and Brentford are two of our main promotion rivals and six points would mean a massive step towards the Premier League.
Two defeats would probably mean Leeds dropping out of the top two for the first time this season, but let’s not think about that.
Given that Forest away is going to pose a very different challenge to Leeds, we can see Marcelo Bielsa making one key change.
Kalvin Phillips is still out although this is the last of his three-game suspension thankfully.
Gaetano Berardi played 45 minutes for the Under-23s on Monday after returning from injury and we think he’ll come in alongside Liam Cooper in the centre of defence.
We think that will see Ben White step up into the holding midfield role and Stuart Dallas coming back to left-back, with Gjanni Alioski missing out.
Lewis Grabban is the main threat for Forest and their 4-2-3-1 formation means Marcelo Bielsa will likely go with his preferred 4-1-4-1.
Some Leeds fans might want to see Jean-Kevin Augustin start but we can say with almost 100% certainty that that won’t happen.
Bar something unforeseen happening to Patrick Bamford, he will lead the line on Saturday and we hope the fans get behind him.
The other player that Leeds fans have been calling for the head of is Kiko Casilla. He had another poor game on Saturday but we don’t see Bielsa dropping him for Illan Meslier.
We do think that Augustin will be involved with the matchday squad and the sight of him on the bench should give the crowd a lift and Bamford a rocket up him.
A word of warning, though, if Augustin comes on then it will probably mean the game isn’t going our way.
In other Leeds United news, ‘Wow really?’, ‘The day you lost the fans’ – Many Leeds fans react to Radrizzani Twitter message