Football – England – Championship
Saturday 19th January 2013 – Kickoff: 1500hrs
Leeds United will be gunning for a sixth straight home win when they take on basement dwellers of the Championship, Bristol City, at Elland Road on Saturday afternoon.
Similarly to Crystal Palace, Leeds have put in some indifferent performances of late with wins over Middlesbrough 2-1 and Bolton Wanderers 1-0 but these have been overshadowed by defeats against Nottingham Forest 2-4, Hull City 0-2 and last weekend away at fellow Yorkshire club Barnsley with the Whites going down 0-2.
Manager Neil Warnock will therefore be very keen for his squad to bounce back immediately and return to winning ways and this will be demanded by the fans too on their home patch. Few would have tipped a run of five straight home wins after witnessing Leeds being on the receiving end of a humiliating 1-6 defeat to Watford, but this is what Leeds have achieved with wins over Crystal Palace, Leicester City, Ipswich Town, Middlesbrough and of course Bolton.
Leeds still have a decent home record of 8-2-3 19/17 and as well as failing to score at home just once so far this season, they’ve also kept five clean sheets which sets them up nicely for taking all three points over a Bristol City side who have just appointed Sean O’Driscoll as their new manager.
Leading goalscorer for Leeds, Luciano Becchio (15 goals, 4 assists) is the stand-out danger man and he will be Leeds’ key threat along with El-Hadj Diouf, Green and Tonge (4 goals each) and the service from Ross McCormack (5 assists) with Diouf also supplying 5 assists.
Bristol City travel north under the new leadership of manager Sean O’Driscoll who has had stints at this level with Doncaster Rovers and his job will be to lift his squad out of the bottom three but this assignment is a tough ask on the back of just one league win in their last five matches and sitting bottom of the pile.
The Robins have recently lost to Derby County, Millwall and Leicester City, but they did manage a 4-2 home win over Peterborough United which brought them a vital three points. Away from home Bristol City have produced some mixed results with wins at Middlesbrough and Sheffield Wednesday but have also suffered defeats at Brighton and Millwall. Bristol City’s away record stands at 3-2-8 14/21 and have failed to score on six occasions.
The worrying thing for Bristol City is that they’ve failed to keep a clean sheet on their travels so far and away at Elland Road where the home fans will be roaring Leeds on, along with an in-form Becchio, I’ll back the hosts for a 3-1 home win here.
Pick; Leeds United straight win @ 1.82 Pinnacle
