By Craig Scott

27th Jul, 2019 | 10:00am

Prutton says why Leeds are favourites for promotion

Leeds United are favourites to win the Championship title next season after finishing third in Marcelo Bielsa’s first year in charge at Elland Road.

According to the Yorkshire Evening Post, the Whites are 9-2 favourites to seal promotion, ahead of Fulham, Cardiff and West Brom.

However David Prutton does not believe that Leeds have earned their favourites tag since the end of last season and have only been made the front-runners due to the size of the club and that they finished third last season.

“Leeds are only favourites because of what happened last year and because of the size of the club,” Prutton told the Yorkshire Evening Post.

“If it was a Bristol City that got to the play-offs and fell short, they wouldn’t be favourites, that’s not the way it goes.”

Prutton has a point.

Since the end of last season Leeds have lost a key player in Pontus Jansson although they have gained Ben White on loan from Brighton to add a new man at centre-back and Helder Costa has been brought in on a temporary basis from Wolves to strengthen the attack.

Leeds appear to be aiming for continuity ahead of the upcoming season and while it was, mostly, these players who finished third last season – it was also these players and this manager who missed out on promotion.

The Whites suffered from a lot of injuries last term with almost every single key first-team player enduring a spell on the sidelines at some point.

However the suggestion was that those issues were self-inflicted by the near-torturous training methods of Bielsa, as well as the Argentine’s insistence on having a small, closely-knit squad.

Injuries are expected under Bielsa and unless he has changed his methods – which is very unlikely – then Leeds United are destined to have the same issues yet again and as Prutton says, their favourites tag is simply down to factors that aren’t really that relevant.