Anderson Set to Start At Leeds Tuesday, 28th Jan 2014 06:00 Boss Mick McCarthy looks set to field the same side which started the second half of Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Reading when the Blues take on Leeds at Elland Road this evening. Paul Anderson came on at the break and topped off an impressive display by scoring the second goal shortly before the final whistle. Anderson had taken over from skipper Carlos Edwards at the break with the Trinidadian suffering a minor groin injury. The 35-year-old was fit enough to make the trip to Yorkshire but is set to be on the bench. Otherwise, McCarthy appears likely to name an unchanged side with Dean Gerken in goal, Luke Chambers wearing the armband at right-back, Aaron Cresswell at left-back and Tommy Smith and Christophe Berra at the centre of the defence. New loan signing Frazer Richardson will be on the bench with McCarthy sticking with his current back four after they registered a clean sheet against the Royals. In midfield, Anderson will be on the right, weekend man of the match Stephen Hunt on the left with Ryan Tunnicliffe and Cole Skuse in the centre. Up front, David McGoldrick and Daryl Murphy will again start. Midfielder Luke Hyam (gashed leg) and striker Sylvan Ebanks-Blake (hamstring) remain the only players currently sidelined with injury. With 12th-placed Leeds like Town amongst the potential play-off chasers — they’re only four points behind the Blues in seventh — the game might be seen as having greater importance than most, but McCarthy disagrees. “It’s three points, that’s what it is, except that they’re close to us,” he said. “We want to win, we want to get the points. I don’t see that any game now has any more significance than any other, except for the points that you can take from them.” Leeds have lost their last five games in all competitions — including a 2-0 FA Cup defeat to Rochdale - and haven’t won in seven and McCarthy’s not sure why things have gone awry for his friend Brian McDermott: “I thought Brian started off brilliantly and they came here and we murdered them for about 30 minutes and we lost 2-1. “I thought they looked a really solid team, they played well in the second half. But it just seems to have turned around. There’s another takeover going on, I don’t know whether that’s having any effect on it. “Brian’s a good man, he’s a mate of mine as well. I think he’s done well, but he’s had a bad run. But prior to Saturday I was answering questions about losing three on the bounce and we’d had a bad run.” While Town were beating Reading on Saturday Leeds had a free weekend, does McCarthy believe that will be a factor tonight? “That question’s always asked. I’ll tell you on Tuesday night at half-past 10. If we go there and win I’ll be saying it was great because we played on Saturday and they didn’t have a game for 10 days. “If we go there and get slapped I’ll be saying that they didn’t play on Saturday and they were fresher than us. I’ll give you my excuse or my reason on Tuesday night. “There’s some stat going round that if you’re in Europe on a Thursday night and then play a team [on the Sunday] that hasn’t had a game, they’ve got a huge percentage, something like 40 per cent, more chance of winning the game. “So that must apply in the league as well if you don’t play, in terms of being fresh. But they’ve got that slight pressure as well, the last two games they’ve had they lost 6-0 and 1-0 at home to Leicester. “They’ve lost [five] on the bounce. They’re in a bit of a transition, there’s another takeover going on. So, despite us playing on Saturday, if we can make use of any upset that might be going on, we’ll do so.” Despite their poor run, the Whites played well against leaders Leicester last time out, but fell to a 1-0 defeat courtesy of a late David Nugent goal. McCarthy recalls Town suffering similar losses themselves earlier in the season: “It’s funny that, I remember going to Wigan and we absolutely slapped Wigan and should have won but lost 2-0. “And when I was having my press conference nobody said to me ‘You know what, you actually played really well in that game, you should have won, so the opposition this weekend must be really worried’. “Strange that, isn’t it? I was banging on about how well we played. Nobody actually says that to the manager that’s lost the game. It’s always to the one that’s going to go and play them next. “They lost the game, that’s what they did, they were beaten. It’s how you feel afterwards and how you recover and you come back at it. “But they did play well, it was a good performance and Leicester are beating everybody at the minute.” The Whites will be without suspended striker Matt Smith with Luke Varney, who has been linked with Blackburn, set to continue to replace him alongside Ross McCormack. Historically, Leeds have the superior record in the fixture, winning 29 (28 in the league) clashes between the teams. Town have been victorious on 24 (19) occasions and 19 (16) games have ended in draws. At Portman Road in August, Leeds came from behind to beat the Blues 2-1 and inflict Town’s first home defeat of the season. David McGoldrick put Town ahead with his first goal of the season during a dominant opening spell but the Whites hit back via Varney and McCormack either side of half-time to win in Suffolk for the first time since September 2001. Last time at Elland Road, in December 2012, goals from Jerome Thomas and Paul Green saw the Whites to a 2-0 win. The home side had the better of the first half with Thomas’s backheel giving them the lead at the break. The Blues dominated possession for much of the second period but were unable to get on terms before Green added the second. Keeper Scott Loach had a trial with Leeds in the summer of 2007, playing a number of friendlies, but a potential loan was scuppered by a transfer embargo following the Whites’ administration. New loan signing Frazer Richardson started his career with Leeds, making 145 starts and 28 sub appearances between 2001 and 2009, scoring five times. Blues assistant manager Terry Connor was with his hometown club between 1979 and 1983, scoring 22 goals in 108 games. Former Town skipper David Norris is the only man in the Leeds squad to have played for the Blues. Norris left Portman Road on a Bosman for Portsmouth in the summer of 2011 after making 114 starts and four sub appearances, scoring 16 goals. He joined Leeds in the summer of 2012 but has made only one Capital One Cup appearance so far this season. Ex-Blues defender or striker Richard Naylor is the U18s coach at the Leeds academy. Whites striker Ross McCormack, the subject of a West Ham offer last week, was close to joining the Blues from Cardiff in the summer of 2010 but the move broke down despite the Scot having held talks with then-manager Roy Keane at Portman Road. Blues winger Stephen Hunt’s younger brother Noel joined the Whites in the summer but a hamstring injury has restricted his involvement to only nine appearances, just one since October. Tonight’s referee is David Webb from Lancashire, who has shown 72 yellow cards and only one red in 22 games so far this season. Webb’s last Town game was the 1-1 draw at Bolton in October when he booked one player from each side. More notable was his previous game involving the Blues, the 1-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest in March last year when he red-carded two Town players, Lee Martin and Richard Stearman, and showed five yellow cards to home players. Squad from: Gerken, Loach, Chambers, Richardson, Cresswell, Mings, Smith, Berra, Skuse, Wordsworth, Tunnicliffe, Edwards, Anderson, Hunt, Tabb, Murphy, McGoldrick, Nouble, Taylor, Lee.
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