Blackburn And Beyond

Tomorrow gives us the opportunity of a 40^th victory over Blackburn Rovers and it gives us a great chance of setting our season alight. Our first half performance against Blackpool would be desirable but if we play half that good it would do me.

Blackburn come into this game in relatively good form, only losing once in their last 10 games. They’ve managed to gather points from their last seven fixtures so no doubt it’ll be a challenging game. 

Leeds United, with an army of 7000, will surely be fired up and ready to battle. The hunger needs to be there and if an army of fanatics don’t motivate you – I don’t know.

For the past few years we have struggled to find players that care; have the passion; the desire; the hunger; the commitment, and all that Neil Warnock repetitive Cornish gibberish.

But now, with a sizeable influx of Italians, I see passion; I see players playing for the shirt; the club; the history; the fan base, and all that good stuff that makes Leeds United. We watch Marco Silvestri give the Leeds Salute to the Kop – and Giuseppe Belusci condemn opposing players for sticking their tongue out at the fans. It’s all coming together. 

We’ve got great young home-grown players – namely Byram, Mowatt and Cook – but there’s plenty more where that came from. There’s Dawson and Taylor flirting with the first team and Kalvin Phillips scoring spectaculars in the development squad.  There’s Eoghan Stokes, Lewie Coyle and Lewis Walters.

It’s a work in progress but it’s clear what talent we have at our disposal and academy wise we are as strong as ever. 

I predict a Yorkshire win and a comfortable one too. Optimistic, I know, but when we put on our playing boots we’re very hard to defend against.