A rare set of back-to-back wins?
Can Leeds United harness Sunday’s energy and provide back-to-back wins for just the second time this season? The feel-good factor has been felt throughout this week after beating Norwich City in such a dramatic fashion, but it will count for little if there is not another good performance tonight.
Will it be more like the visit to Leicester City, full of opportunities and poor finishing, or the visit of Aston Villa, an abject, rudderless mess? The former is the requirement with an international break to fill with good feeling immediately after full-time.
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How are Phillips and Cooper used?
The big news of the week from Jesse Marsch was the returns to full training for Liam Cooper and Kalvin Phillips. Neither has played a minute of football for the side in more than three months and with a two-week break imminent, it will be intriguing to see how Marsch uses them, if at all, in the West Midlands.
Given the side won on Sunday, Marsch may see fit to stick with what he has rather than risk two players who have been out for so long. He did reiterate how disciplined he is with player selection when it comes to injury recoveries in his pre-match press conference.
Putting daylight between Leeds and the bottom three?
A run of tough fixtures and dire results has made it feel a long time since Leeds were in any kind of position to even contemplate daylight between them and the bottom three. The rot was stopped on Sunday and a win tonight, with Watford not playing again until April 2 away at Liverpool, would put Leeds seven points clear of the drop zone.
Psychologically, that feels like a significant gap for Leeds to cling on to with a trip to Watford to come next month too.
Strongest bench in months
Based on Marsch’s injury update on Thursday morning, there is a good chance he is only without Junior Firpo, Tyler Roberts and Leo Hjelde, with Lewis Bate and Jamie Shackleton minor doubts. If the team were to be unchanged from Sunday, that would leave Robin Koch, Liam Cooper, Jack Harrison, Kalvin Phillips, Joe Gelhardt and Shackleton among the subs.
It has been a long time since it felt like the Leeds bench had anywhere near that many options for either Marcelo Bielsa or Marsch.
Bamford and Rodrigo to pick up where they left off?
The England international entirely transformed the cut and thrust of the attack going into Sunday’s game, while Rodrigo was infinitely better than the showing he put on last Thursday against Aston Villa. If they are both as fit as Marsch hopes they will be, a lot of the side’s attacking hopes will rest on how they play together again on Friday night.
Bamford proved an excellent focal point the three attacking midfielders could work around, and released Raphinha and Daniel James into the channels behind the Norwich defence on a few occasions.
