Leeds United receive ‘major’ boost to promotion hopes as Leicester set to lose stars in January
Leeds United are well and truly in the race for the automatic promotion places this season after their excellent start to the Championship campaign.
The issue for the Whites however, is that two other clubs have flown out of the blocks even quicker than them, with Leicester City and Ipswich Town the division’s early leaders, currently sitting eight points above Daniel Farke’s side after 16 games.
Luckily for Leeds and the other teams hoping to win promotion to the Premier League, there are still 90 points to play for this season and in the Championship, anything can happen. However, it does appear that the Whites have one big advantage over Leicester in particular.
When the African Cup of Nations kicks off in January, none of Farke’s current squad at Elland Road will be taking part in the tournament however the Foxes could potentially be without six first-team players for up to a month because of the tournament [Yorkshire Evening Post, 15 November].
Kelechi Iheanacho and Wilfried Ndidi represent Nigeria, Patson Daka is a Zambian international, Abdul Fatal plays for Ghana, and Wanya Marcal Madivadua could play for Anglola all while Stephy Mavididi remains eligible for the Democratic Republic of Congo.
While not all of those players have been crucial to Leicester’s impressive start to the season, the likes of Ndidi, Iheanacho and Mavididi can be difference-makers in the Championship and it will be a huge blow to Leicester City to be without them for potentially three weeks of the season.
With the intense fixture schedule between the end of the November international break and the turn of the new year, which sees Leeds play nine Championship games, Farke’s side could be within touching distance of the Foxes by 2024
While that will require them to keep up their impressive recent form over the next month, they could well be in an excellent position to take advantage of Leeds’ absences and leapfrog Enzo Maresca’s side into the automatic promotion places.
The Foxes have shown that they won’t give up points too often this season and the Whites may not get a better opportunity to close the gap at the top of the table than the period in which the AFCON is played.
January could well prove to be a crucial period in the race for promotion to the Premier League and Leeds have to take the chance to give their promotion hopes a “major boost.”
In other Leeds United news, Farke has said that he is now a much better manager than he was at Norwich despite the emergence of a new stat