Leeds United are in pole position to win Premier League promotion.
Former Leeds United star and Huddersfield coach Andrew Hughes has told BBC Radio Yorkshire that his old club have a spine needed to win Premier League promotion.
Leeds have a one-point cushion from Sheffield United in the automatic promotion places with five Championship games to go.
The prospect of ending their 15-year Premier League exile is very real.
Hughes knows a thing or two about top-flight promotion after working with the Huddersfield side that came up in 2017.
And the 41-year-old, who spent three years at Elland Road as a player until 2010, has spotted interesting similarities between the spine running through Marcelo Bielsa’s side and the one which won promotion under David Wagner a couple of years ago.
“It’s a good spine,” Hughes told BBC Radio Yorkshire. “Look at the spine of the team. Two top centre halves, Bamford up front causing carnage, Kalvin Phillips in the middle of the park – that’s a really good spine.
“Then you’ve got your wide men just causing damage, causing problems, being clever.
“When we got promoted at Huddersfield we had a top ‘keeper, Wardy, on loan from Liverpool, then we had, Schindler, Jonathan Hogg, Aaron Mooy, then you’d got Izzy Brown – who’s here – in the ten, you had Nahki Wells; it was a good spine. Leeds have got that. I sense it. I see it.”
Huddersfield have already been relegated from the Premier League, having won just 14 points this season, but Leeds won’t want to face their Yorkshire rivals next term.
They will want to be back in the big time and if Bielsa’s side can win all five of their remaining games, they’ll be there.
They host Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday, before welcoming Wigan to Elland Road five days later.
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