After an 18-day absence of home football, two mouthwatering games await Leeds United in four days, starting on Wednesday 29 November.
Swansea City journey up from South Wales for a night under the Elland Road lights, before Middlesbrough travel down from Teesside for Saturday’s afternoon kick-off.
The ever-faithful fans of Leeds United will be hoping for more of – the – same as Leeds have remained undefeated in the first eight home league clashes – five wins and three draws. With that, Ben Scott takes us straight into our first Memory Match feature of two for this week, reliving some memories from a past encounter.
Swansea City arrived in Leeds the day before Valentines Day in 2019. However, it was Leeds who continued their own date with destiny, continuing a push into the top-six of the league by taking all three points from this encounter.
That clash was a midweek affair with a hearty 34,044 in attendance, who would witness Leeds come out 2-1 winners. The low scoreline didn’t do justice of the sheer domination on the night as Leeds racked up 19 shots and 61% possession.
After just five minutes of play, the Whites had crafted the first of many openings they would create on the evening. It was a Kemar Roofe who shot from outside the box, using his right-foot, sending the ball across left of Erwin Mulder’s goal.
The Dutchman was in for a very busy night as the likes of Pablo Hernandez, Patrick Bamford, Matuesz Klich and the afore mentioned Roofe would carve out chances and shots, time after time, giving the Swans back line plenty to deal with.
After 20 minutes, there was a goal for Marcelo Bielsa’s side as Pontus Jansson, in the centre of the penalty box, hit a left-footed shot into the bottom left-corner.
Just 14 minutes after Leeds had scored their first goal, they netted a second, which was a sweet header by Jack Harrison into the bottom right corner, courtesy of an Ezgjan Alioski assist.
It was only eight minutes into the second half when Mulder was called back into action as he denied Leeds skipper Liam Cooper, who had placed a header on target from a Leeds corner.
Approaching the end of the game, Swansea set up a tense finish. From the penalty spot, the away side pulled one back when Oli McBurnie converted and 87th minute penalty. A rare away attack brought the goal, and hope for the visitors entering stoppage time.
Despite both teams giving away several fouls in the final five minutes of added play, thankfully for the hosts, no further goals came. Leeds claimed all the points and that win would see them go top of the table that night, before eventually going on to finish third in the final standings.
