Leeds United take on Millwall on Wednesday night in a much tougher test than the one that saw Daniel Farke’s side stroll to a 3-0 win over Plymouth Argyle at the weekend.
In arguably their easiest game of the season so far, Leeds cruised to all three points and a seventh win of the season against Wayne Rooney’s men – with Argyle failing to lay a single finger on Leeds at any point.
Illan Meslier’s eighth clean sheet of the season had helped Leeds climb to second place, only for results on Tuesday night to push Leeds back into third. A win at Millwall though, could take Leeds top of the pile.
If, Sunderland fail to beat Sam Greenwood and Paul Heckingbottom’s Preston on Wednesday night. The Whites are going well, two points better off than the Leeds that got promoted under Marcelo Bielsa.
Leeds XI to face Millwall as Daniel Farke makes one change
As predicted, Farke has kept things as similar as possible. Joel Piroe continues to keep Patrick Bamford and Mateo Joseph out of the side after his fifth goal of the season on the weekend, Leeds’ second.
Joe Rothwell and Ao Tanaka remain the only two fit central midfielders aside from new signing Josuha Guilavogui. Dan James and Wilfried Gnonto start out wide, even with Israel skipper Manor Solomon fit.
The only change comes in defence and it was perhaps expected. Sam Byram has filled in for Jayden Bogle and Junior Firpo with both serving one-match suspensions, but Bogle comes back in for versatile Byram.
Harsh on Sam Byram as Daniel Farke returns to his best back four
Just last week, Farke described Byram as a “key player”. But the Thorp Arch academy product is not first choice and is simply first reserve when either Bogle or Firpo are unavailable, with Bogle coming back in.
Indeed, Farke actually fielded the same back four for the first 11 games of the Championship campaign, before Firpo picked up a fifth yellow and was shortly followed by Bogle in the draw at Bristol City.
Byram won every single one of his duels at Bristol City, and has impressed. But the defender now finds himself back on the bench and actually, he can consider himself largely unfortunate for being dropped.
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