Joe Donnohue points to Leeds United defensive change v Southampton

All eyes are on Wembley Stadium on Sunday afternoon as Leeds United look to bring a successful end to their bid for an immediate return to the Premier League.

Just 12 months have passed since Elland Road witnessed emotional scenes as the Whites slipped out of English football’s top tier and began a rebuilding job under new ownership. Daniel Farke was tasked with overseeing the promotion bid and after missing out on automatic promotion, the former Norwich City boss is currently finalising his plans for Sunday’s play-off final clash with another side aiming to bounce back from relegation in the best possible fashion, Southampton.

On days like this, little attention should be paid to form and past results - and that is probably for the best for Farke and his players after they suffered a 3-1 away defeat against the Saints in September before falling to an Elland Road loss against Russell Martin’s side just three weeks ago as the dream of automatic promotion was ended on the final day of the campaign.

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However, with all focus now on making it third-time lucky against Southampton and ensuring their second tier stay is limited to just a solitary season, the Whites have been backed to put in a ‘different’ performance to those previous meetings and YEP writer Joe Donnohue has pointed to one key area where the Whites could benefit from some consistency under the Wembley arch.

He told the Inside Elland Road Podcast: “Can you tell me what the back four was against Southampton at St Marys? It was right-back Jamie Shackleton, right-side centre-back was Pascal Struijk, on the left-hand side of defence you had Liam Cooper and Sam Byram. There is a very, very good chance that the back four that lines up this weekend (in the play-off final) is (Archie) Gray on the right, (Joe) Rodon and (Ethan) Ampadu in the middle and (Junior) Firpo on the left.

“So it’s a completely different back four and then you throw in a caveat of, on the final day of the season, Leeds had to go for it, they didn’t have an option, they had to win the game if they stood any chance of automatic promotion. They were still going for that. As well as that, when the game started to get away from them, and they knew Ipswich were winning, you can’t tell me that the acknowledgement it’s effectively a dead rubber sets in. That second-half, the intensity wasn’t there in the same way it when in the opening stages when all of the goals were scored. So I think we will see a different Leeds performance, we will see a different setup from the last time they played.”