Tony Dorigo believes Leeds will survive relegation battle
Tony Dorigo believes Leeds United will be “absolutely fine” once they get their players back fit again in their survival scrap.
The Whites current sit five points above the relegation zone despite winning just three league games so far this season.
The club have had bad injury problems in recent times, which mixed with COVID-19 have seen their last two games postponed.
Dorigo, who works as a pundit for BT Sport, wrote in his column for the Yorkshire Evening Post that once those players are healthy again he believes that they will be able to win enough games to survive.
“Clearly, recent games have been disappointing but, as much as we don’t like to have excuses, I think there are one or two reasons why we will pick up and get better and be absolutely okay,” he said.
“Overall, I always thought this second season was going to be a lot more difficult and we have just got to make sure we stay in there and hang in there.
“We have got the players when they are all back fit and playing to be absolutely okay but this is a tough period and nobody is under any illusions.
“We have seen the Sheffield United situation and what have you but a lot of teams have had this experience and we have got to be good enough to get through it.
“I think we have got the team, if we put our best team out, to be absolutely fine.”
Hopeful
This is going to be a long, hard second half of the season for Leeds and they will need to get their regular first-teamers back as soon as possible.
Brazilian Raphinha has been the only player to really live up to his expected standard this season, but that means there is plenty of room for improvement.
Patrick Bamford’s absence for a large chunk of the season has been important, while Kalvin Phillips has been ruled out until February with an injury. But once both return, along with others, Leeds showed last season that they are good enough to be in the top flight.
If they can string together a run of wins they’ll likely be able to create some momentum and a gap between themselves and the teams below them.
The fact they now have a couple of games in hand too will also help them, but only if they can get points on the board to take advantage of them.
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