Monday, February 09, 2009

THE BATTLE OF ELLAND ROAD .........

ENGLAND DIVISION 1

LEEDS UNITED - MILLWALL

Both teams have had nine days to recover from disappointing losses and we can expect two very committed teams to take to the field at Elland Road this evening. Visitors, conceded two late goals to lose 2-1 at home to promotion rivals Scunthorpe and also suffered injuries to two key players in Lewis Grabbon and Paul Robinson, neither of whom will be available tonight. They will also be without the suspended Marc Laird and striker Tresor Kandol, who scored 8 goals in 16 appearances for the Lions, the Leeds registered player has now joined Charlton on a season long loan.

United had seemingly got their promotion campaign back on track, with three straight wins, before losing 1-0 at Walsall, where once again they had a huge amount of possession (65%) and created the majority of goal scoring chances. I think that they will have benifitted from the break, this has enabled them to clear up a number of minor injury concerns and only Fraser Richardson is missing, from an otherwise fully fit squad. With Leeds you can almost toss a coin, if they are on a going day, few teams outside the top flight can live with them and at this level, probably only Leicester, if not, well, anything can happen. They must be a very frustrating team to follow. Player for player, they are far and away the superior team, the fact that Kandol cannot even get a look in, yet can play and score in 50% of starts, for a team above United in the table, tells you all you need to know,about the quality Simon Grayson has at his disposal.

This is a big game for the home side, they trail Millwall, who are in the final promotion playoff spot by five points, having played two games more, failure to win tonight, is going to leave them with a mountain to climb. United have won 11 home matches this season, seven of those have come by two or more goals, averaging 2.91 in all those wins. So when they do win, it is normally comfortably and I expect we might see more of the same, I am going to side with them giving up 3/4 goal and also take a little on over 4.5 goals, which obliged in 3 of those 11 wins and also in three of Millwall's last nine away starts. There were four goals in the reverse meeting in London and United took this fixture 4-2 last season, a repeat of which would be ideal .

6 points Leeds United -3/4 ball 2.23 asian line.

2 points "over" 4.5 goals 9.0 + exchanges ......... up to 9.40 currently available.

Back Later.

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