Yorkshire Evening Post journalist Phil Hay has said that Leeds have a “great chance” of getting through the play-offs after the explosive game against Aston Villa on Sunday.
Hay was talking on the Second Captains podcast(64 mins) when he was asked about whether he thought Leeds would win the play-offs and Hay said he had more hope now than he did before the Villa game.
“I feel they’ve got a great chance and I feel they’ve got a better chance after the way they played on Sunday,” Hay said.
“They really needed to get back on the horse. The Easter weekend seemed to come down to nerves and things didn’t run for them, but ultimately when you look at the two performances over 90 minutes, there was a real anxiety there and especially against Wigan you could almost sense the confidence draining out of them.
“After yesterday they’ll be pretty confident of playing Aston Villa in the final and it’s looking like it will be Aston Villa or West Brom in the final. The semi-final will be Derby, Middlesbrough or Bristol City, they’ve beaten Derby twice, they’ve beaten Bristol City twice and drawn with Middlesbrough twice but on their day they’re a better team than Boro.
“I would be very confident of them going through the semi-finals and then it comes down to a one-game shoot-out. Nobody can deny that Leeds’ previous record of four games and four defeats is not good, but I do think that yesterday was the right game at the right time for Leeds.”
OPINION
Leeds have provided so many headlines on and off the pitch this season, and the drama continued at Elland Road in an explosive encounter that had the whole football world talking about it. Whoever decided that this season would be the one to film a feature-length Leeds documentary must be rubbing their hands together with glee. Will it have a happy ending, though? The play-offs are going to be tough but Leeds got back to their best yesterday. They beat Aston Villa at Villa park earlier in the season and were the better side at Elland Road on Sunday. They really will fancy their chances in a one-game shootout at Wembley, but it could obviously go either way and there’s going to be a lot of history if these two sides do make it through to the final. We’ve already got goosebumps thinking about it.