Here are the Leeds United morning headlines on Tuesday December 29th.
Sam Allardyce on stopping Leeds
Leeds United travel to West Bromwich Albion this evening as they look to earn only their second back-to-back wins of the season.
The Baggies are coming off a 1-1 draw against Liverpool at Anfield in Sam Allardyce's second match in charge and the new Baggies boss will be looking for the first win of his Hawthorns tenure when the Whites visit.
“Bielsa plays with intelligence and with a unique style,” Allardyce said of tonight's opponents. “I think it serves the players and the club in good stead.
“I think we have to find out a way how we can score against them. Sometimes that seems pretty easy, but football is never that straightforward.
“At the other end, they go out to try and score as many goals as they possibly can so we have to cancel that out. It’s going to be interesting to come up against them and coming up with a plan on how to tackle them.
“We have got an idea. When you play against Leeds, you know you have to try and stop them from being as adventurous as they are. But we also have to expose the weaknesses and the gaps and spaces that they leave.”
Both teams will have had just two days since their matches but the former England boss is not expecting to make many changes.
“We’ve looked at how they recover and how quickly we can recover,” he added.
“Me and Sammy [Lee] are not that sure about the squad yet because we have only trained with them – we have not seen them play much.
“I’m not so sure we can make too many changes. But certainly, we have done our absolute best to help the players recover quickly.
“And if there are changes to be made, hopefully, the player that comes in will do what the players did so well at Liverpool which is play together and work extremely hard.
“But obviously, against Leeds, we have to go and try and win.”
Squad for West Brom revealed
Marcelo Bielsa is set to again be without his three first-choice centre-backs for tonight's trip to The Hawthorns to face West Brom.
Liam Cooper, Diego Llorente and Robin Koch are all sidelined which meant a makeshift three-man backline of Luke Ayling, Kalvin Phillips and Pascal Struijk were called upon for Sunday's win over Burnley.
Sam Allardyce's penchant for a lone striker should mean Leeds can revert back to a back-four this evening, although that may not require any changes to Bielsa's starting XI.
Here is a look at the squad Bielsa has at his disposal for tonight's Baggies test.
West Brom's injury list
It's not just Leeds who will be without their skipper tonight, as Baggies captain Jake Livermore is unavailable as his three-match ban following his red card in the defeat to Aston Villa continues.
Here are the rest of the Baggies' injury and suspension worries.
Leeds begin the day seven places and 12 points ahead of Allardyce's side and a win could mean they end 2020 in the top half of the Premier League table.
