Leeds United winger Ezgjan Alioski spoke to the official matchday programme about the season so far.

The Whites currently sit in the second automatic promotion spot in the Sky Bet Championship, with the halfway stage of the season approaching.

Here, Alioski speaks about his ideal scenario for club and country and about the upcoming games over Christmas....

Gjanni, how pleased are you with how the campaign is going? 

“We work hard, we wanted to be here where we are now and we deserve it because of the hard work put in until now.  It’s unbelievable how we do this, keeping the goal that we want to be at the top end of the table.  The season is not finished though, it is still the beginning.”

All of the hard work and focus, is that down to Marcelo Bielsa and his coaching staff getting the best out of you as a group?

“After 18 months together with him, he knows each player even better.  We know the staff and we understand things much better.  We know the work they want to do and this becomes natural.  They give us information, videos, meetings and with the training that they do, when you do this every day together for a year and a half, some things just happen automatically.  This is positive because we can continue with other working and learn better.  The staff have really helped grow the team.”

Away from Leeds you’re always a regular in the North Macedonia side as well, how much do you enjoy it and what does it mean to you?

“It’s something different when you play for your country.  It is a nice feeling.  You’re not together every day like you are at a club, you are only there for a short period and you need to enjoy this.  It’s hard to be a national team player, but when you are, you have to enjoy it and try to achieve something.  Five years ago Macedonia changed their philosophy to try and bring through young players and it is unbelievable how things have changed.  Now we have a lot of first team players playing for top clubs and we are now able to try and achieve history with the country in the next few months by qualifying for Euro 2020.  We have two games against Kosovo in the Play-Off semi final and if we get to the final we have Belarus or Georgia.  It’s two games where we can go and dream of getting there.”

What would it mean if you could achieve that dream and get to Euro 2020?

“I don’t know what the feeling would be like because the country has never been in a European Championship or World Cup.  To win a Play-Off, it would be amazing for the country and amazing for me.  I have been around the first team for six or seven years.  It would be perfect to get the country into Euro 2020 and get to the Premier League with Leeds both together.  It is a big dream, but I hope this dream comes true.

With Leeds, you’ve been on a great run recently...

“It’s nice, but we still need to keep working hard.  We have won nothing yet.  We have the points but there is still a long season ahead.  We need to enjoy after a game when we win, but then our concentration needs to turn to the next game.  We have a lot of games coming up over the next few weeks and it is an important period coming up over the festive season against Fulham, Preston and West Brom.  We know it won’t be easy, but the team is ready to do it.”

Finally, how much are you enjoying playing in front of the Leeds fans...

“It’s unbelievable!  I’ve never seen this before.  I watch a lot of football and play in other countries and compare, but the Leeds fans are crazy... Crazy in a positive sense.  They support us in every game home and away and we feel bad when we lose, we want to send them home happy.  When we can’t do this, I am also sad.  The Leeds fans will always be in my heart, they are beautiful and amazing fans right until the end.  They support us absolutely everywhere and I want to say thank you to them.”