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A misnomer has grown around the play-offs of any division in recent years that insists form is everything leading into them.
The thinking goes that the team who falls away from an automatic promotion place and ends up finishing third invariably misses out, while the team who puts together a fine late run to nail a top six spot is the main threat.
If there is any truth in this then Leeds United are royally screwed as they prepare to head to Pride Park this weekend because Marcelo Bielsa’s men gained only a solitary point from their last four games as an otherwise tremendous campaign stuttered to an anti-climax.
As for Derby County, they have lost just once since early March while their last-gasp securement of sixth is all the more impressive given that for much of the year the Rams remained on the periphery of proceedings.
Thankfully for the Yorkshire giants this accepted truism is actually an exaggeration. Since the play-offs were first formed a total of thirty clubs have made it to the promised land via the back door and from those over a third ended the season as the ‘best of the rest’. Only five, meanwhile, were eventually promoted to the Premier League after coming sixth.
Furthermore, suggestions that Leed’s highly intensive ‘Bielsa-ball’ is running out of puff seems too neat and easy especially as they have suffered glitches before and always come back fighting. This is something Derby boss Frank Lampard acknowledged this week, saying: “I won’t plan to think they are in bad form. I will plan for the Leeds that beat us well (twice) and that were looking at Christmas like they were going to win the league. I will plan for that team.”
One of those losses of course came in the week of ‘spy-gate’ but it’s another controversy involving Leeds that is more pertinent here as Patrick Bamford’s recent histrionics leave him suspended for the first leg of this semi-final. Kemar Roofe is certainly an able replacement up front – especially as the 26-year-old is the club’s leading goal-scorer this term in the league – but it requires change nonetheless while injuries to Ezgjan Elioski and Barry Douglas will mean Stuart Dallas is converted at left-back from his usual midfield slot.
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The latter rejig is interesting as it will directly pit an out-of-position player against Rams’ winger Harry Wilson, who has repeatedly shown throughout 2018/19 that he has the beating of his man. Elsewhere, Mason Mount will be key too as Derby turn to their young loanees to provide creativity in the final third.
Overview
For all the talk of Bielsa’s exhilarating and demanding blueprint it is via their defensive solidity that they have reached such heights, a solidity founded on a highly effective centre-back pairing of Pontus Jansson and Liam Cooper.
The latter was recently voted into the SkyBet Championship Team of the Year and with a draw representing a very good result ahead of taking their opponents back to Elland Road don’t be surprised if this is a low-scoring encounter that ends in stalemate.