Leeds United travel south to face Aston Villa on Saturday, a week after they emerged victorious against fellow West Midland outfit Birmingham City in the Emirates FA Cup.
At St. Andrew's, a much-changed Whites side were taken to penalties after an emphatic strike from Lukas Nmecha in normal time. From the spot, Joël Piroe, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Brenden Aaronson and Sean Longstaff made no mistake.
In goal, Lucas Perri produced a fine save to deny Tommy Doyle’s spot kick, following on from a pair of stunning first-half interventions. For their efforts, Leeds have been rewarded with a rare home draw, welcoming Norwich City to Elland Road in March.
Cup success comes amid a fine run of form for the Whites, who have lost just two of their last 13 in the Premier League. Against high-flying Chelsea in London, United showed tremendous heart to rally from two goals down late to earn a point, with Nmecha and Noah Okafor on the scoresheet.
And the week prior, Leeds rewarded a roaring Elland Road crowd with a thrilling 3-1 win against Nottingham Forest as Jayden Bogle, Okafor and Calvert-Lewin scored. For the Whites’ number 9, it marked goal number 10 of the season.
Fellow striker Nmecha is also in fine form at the minute – the German international has three goals and an assist in his last six matches in all competitions.
The Whites are currently 15th in the table after the first 26 matches and now face an Aston Villa side sitting third, with major aspirations. In November, Nmecha opened the scoring for Leeds against the Villans but the Birmingham outfit rallied to fight back and win 2-1.
Since an 11-game winning run came to an end against Arsenal in December, Unai Emery’s side have struggled to maintain such exceptional form, winning three, drawing two and losing two in the league. And last weekend, Villa fell to visitors Newcastle United 3-1 in the FA Cup.
But though the hosts have fallen behind in the title race to Arsenal and Manchester City, they maintain a sizeable cushion to qualify for the Champions League for the second time in three seasons.
Over the decades, there have been many memorable, often fiery encounters between the Whites and the Villans dating back to a 6-0 Leeds win in the first meeting in 1924.
United and Villa have met one another 105 times with the Whites winning 32 and drawing 32 of those matches. Memorably in recent times, Leeds won 3-0 in Birmingham in 2020 thanks to a fantastic second-half hat trick from Patrick Bamford.
Action from Villa Park gets underway at 3pm and you can follow it all across leedsunited.com, as well as on LUTV.
A memorable meeting:
Team News:
Daniel Farke stated a hamstring strain picked up in the cup clash with Birmingham will rule Okafor out for between two and four weeks. In more positive news, however, trio Anton Stach, Pascal Struijk and Daniel James are back in training and in contention to feature.
How to follow:
Monthly audio subscribers around the world can listen to every minute of Saturday’s fixture LIVE on LUTV. Bryn Law will be joined by Tony Dorigo on commentary. Pre-match build up begins at 2:30pm with Michael Bridges and Dom Matteo in the studio!
The view from inside the camp:
Speaking ahead of the encounter, Jayden Bogle said: “We have to be confident against everyone in this league, otherwise it can get really difficult. We respect them, they are a fantastic side, but I think we are just focusing on what we can do.
“I think every game, whether it is home or away, we have to approach with a mindset that we are good enough to go and win. That is the mindset we will go into the game with, while obviously being respectful that they are a fantastic side.”
Read the full interview HERE.
Important supporter information:
Digital ticketing will become a mandatory requirement for all existing Premier League clubs by no later than Season 2026/27. Newly promoted clubs will have a period of two years to implement its use upon joining the League. Therefore as part of our transition to being fully digital, our ticket allocation for the Aston Villa away fixture will be digital NFC tickets.
A digital NFC ticket will be emailed to each ticket holder. Once the deadline for away ticket refunds has passed, digital tickets will be sent out no later than close of business on Wednesday 18th February. Digital tickets can only be downloaded once. Please note, screenshots of digital tickets will not work.
All supporters are encouraged to arrive early for this game and ensure that they have downloaded their digital ticket to their Apple/ Google wallet on their smartphone before arriving at Villa Park.
Away Coaches will park at Beaucrest, this is a 10 minute walk from the stadium close to Witton Station, this is a different location to previous seasons. 1 Holdford Road, Perry Barr, B6 7EP.
Convenient and secure parking can be booked below. The car park is located a 15 minute walk from Villa Park, opens three hours before kick-off and will close an hour after the final whistle.
Small bags, no larger than an A4 piece of paper will be permitted into Villa Park (subject to a search by our stewards). Any larger bags will not be permitted. Please note we have no bag drop facility at Villa Park. Please check the full list of prohibited items before travelling to the stadium below.
Discriminatory language or chanting, including tragedy chanting, is not acceptable, and you could be breaking the law. The club condemns this behaviour and has a zero-tolerance policy towards discrimination abuse of all kinds.
Tough measures and sanctions are in place across all English football leagues to tackle dangerous and illegal behaviours within football grounds, and this involves but is not limited to, discriminatory behaviour, tragedy chanting, fans entering the pitch, the use of pyros and throwing objects.
What has Daniel Farke said ahead of the match?
League position:
Leeds: 15th
Villa: 3rd
Top scorer:
Leeds: Dominic Calvert-Lewin (10)
Villa: Morgan Rogers & Ollie Watkins (8)
Officials
Referee: Michael Oliver
Assistant referees: Stuart Burt & James Mainwaring
Fourth official: Andrew Kitchen
Video Assistant Referee: Tony Harrington
Additional Video Assistant Referee: Blake Antrobus
