I fully expected Charlton to win the league this year but I'm confident Leeds will seize the second place spot for automatic promotion. Nobody wants it more this year, I guarantee it. We're top of the league now but today was the second in a month of hard fixtures (Liverpool was the first). If we get through the next five games and we're still in the top two, we'll go up for sure. The next week is essentially pivotal for deciding who will be top at Xmas. On Tuesday we face Carlisle at home, whereas Charlton have a difficult fixture away at Colchester. Then on Saturday Charlton have to come to Elland Road. If we win both games and Charlton don't win at Colchester, we could open up a gap of eight points. Of course there will be our usual mid-season lull but I guarantee we will finish the season strong because it's a Leeds tradition of sorts.
Honestly, our reserves are good enough to get promotion this year so our first team has no excuses. We've got an excellent manager now who has shown on several occasions this season alone that he is savvy enough to make the right substitutions to win games. I doubt anyone will leave in the next transfer window because there's a real desire in our young players to see this promotion job through. I'm more concerned about losing Robert Snodgrass than Jermaine Beckford right now because the former is inevitably about to become a Scottish international and though he's not at the top of his game right now (despite winning the game today), he's almost certainly our most promising bit of talent. Last year he only played sporadically and produced eleven goals and eighteen assists. The best thing about having Fabian Delph last season was that it distracted people away from Snoddy. That and we got four to six million for a player who occupied a position now filled by Bradley Johnson, who has already scored as many goals in eight games as Delph did all season last year.
I like Jermaine Beckford but he's not as important as people make out to Leeds. He's been unlucky to have two perfectly good goals disallowed in the last two games. Beckford won't leave Leeds for two important reasons. Firstly, he doesn't want to - apparently he doesn't talk to the press but those who actually train with him will tell you that his ambition is to play for Leeds in the Premiership (I don't think he will, I reckon he might even be allowed to leave if we get promoted because we'll be able to afford a proven Championship striker by then) and the speculation doesn't interest him. The only reason he didn't get a new contract was because I think Leeds are willing to let him walk at the end of the season once we've achieved promotion so they don't feel the need to spend this year paying him inflated wages which would only serve to upset his fellow players who would inevitably be on less money. Secondly, more importantly, he's not worth how much we would ask for him. Jason Scotland went to Wigan for £1.5 million pre-season and he's a better player than Beckford. We're asking for about £4 million. The only people with that much money are Premiership teams and who's going to piss away that kind of money on someone who might not (probably won't) cut it in the first tier of English football.
Anyhow, by this time next week it's going to be very interesting to see where Leeds are in the table. If we get even four points from the next two games I will be very, very happy indeed.
