Midfielder Liam Bridcutt spoke to the media ahead of the Saturday evening’s Yorkshire derby with Barnsley. 

Since returning from injury against Reading in December, United have gone on to win six out of seven matches, only dropping points in the away draw at Aston Villa.

The Whites captain has been pleased to return to the side and help Leeds move up to third in the Sky Bet Championship.

Bridcutt said: “I’ve had a good run of games now, the most important thing for me was my base work and then to try to pick up my sharpness.

“Having the injury was a learning curve for me, in my career I’ve never been out for as long, but it helped that the team was doing so well, which kept me in good spirits.”

“I think last Friday was my best performance in a long while, I feel really fit and strong now.

“From start to finish we dominated the game, we had a game plan to go out and physically do a job on Derby, technically we did very well and it was one of the best and most important games we have had this season."

Over recent years Oakwell has proved to be a tricky place for Leeds to visit and Bridcutt is expecting Saturday to be no different.

“With every game we are growing in confidence, but every game is a tough game for us,” explained Bridcutt.

“I think the higher we sit up the table, the harder it is going to get because everyone wants to beat the teams at the top.

“We don’t want to talk about promotion, but we have a great squad of players where we are all striving for the same thing, we always want to be at the top of our game and everyone wants to better themselves.

“Every time I have been to Oakwell it has been a tough game, there are a few things going on behind the scenes there, but that is football.

“Barnsley are doing really well in this league, it is going to be the difficult game, but we go into every game with the confidence that we are going to win and we want to win every game.”

LUTV subscribers can see the full press conference with Liam Bridcutt below: