Sunderland vs Stoke City

With an intention to come back to the winning track from their unexpected loss last weekend, Leeds United, currently fighting for the promotion, will take on Derby County at the Elland Road in the Championship match on Saturday evening.

The Whites lost a very close match to Blackburn Rovers at the end of November, while Rams were highly unfortunate to be tasting back to back defeats at Pride Park within the last two weeks.

After amassing nine points from the matches against Queens Park Rangers, Swansea City and Luton Town, the promotion favourites Leeds United lost to Blackburn 1-0 last Saturday afternoon.

The one-time Premier League champions took the full Conference maximum from the contest with a first half penalty from Cantwell who has finished the season at Norwich City as a star player .

Turning our attention back to Leeds, Daniel Farke’s squad could only register a goalless end to their Lancashire trip last weekend, this left the Saturday’s hosts three points shy of the Championship summit and occupying third place, behind current leaders and challengers for the coveted playoffs ticket, Sheffield United.

Comforted with a six match winning streak at home the whites should enter the Yorkshire giants tie with a lot of confidence to take on the Rams this weekend with the home side having scored as many as 20 goals out of their nine home fixtures so far and only behind Norwich city’s 25 goals as the most potency home side in the league.

Ever since Crysencio Summerville left for West Ham United during summer, another flying Dutchman has stood up to the goalscoring for Leeds in the person of Joel Piroe who has only managed to score 7 goals in 18 Championship games so far.

Due to their recent stints in the Premier League and League One, respectively, Leeds and Derby will play each other for the first time this weekend since Marcelo Bielsa's team won in the East Midlands in July 2020 thanks to goals from Pablo Hernandez and Jamie Shackleton.

Wales international Ethan Ampadu is still out of commission for Leeds and isn't scheduled to return until late January because of a knee issue.

Although there are issues with other sections of the Whites' backline, Pascal Struijk and Joe Rodon will continue to form the center-back partnership.

Since then, the Potters have only managed three victories, and following their 2-0 loss to Burnley at home, they have now lost four straight games.
Under Pelach, Stoke has only managed three clean sheets while failing to score more than twice in a game, with the exception of their six-goal thumping of Portsmouth.


The Staffordshire-based team is now nine points out of the playoffs, so they will have a difficult time competing for promotion in the second half of the season.

Chris Mepham's suspension for being fired from Sheffield United will require Le Bris to make at least one Sunderland move.

Luke O'Nien will be used in the other position, and Ali Alese is expected to be drafted into the defense at either left or center back.

If Eliezer Mayenda or Adil Aouchiche are not given a chance in the final third, the remainder of the team can stay the same.

Pelach has to choose between sticking with a back three and switching back to a four. Both of these structures are theoretically feasible.

Both Lewis Koumas and Andrew Moran could be called up, especially if one of the three central midfielders from Burnley's defeat is benched.