How do Leeds United compare to this time last season?

Daniel Wales and Lee Sobot discuss where Leeds were at this stage last season and how it compares to where they are now.

Transcript

00:00I think we're going to start this week by looking at sort of where Leeds were this time

00:07last year, and we will go on to look at sort of where they are right now and a bit of a

00:12quarter-season review, but if we look at where they were last year, because of course we

00:17all know what happened at the end of last season, playoffs, Wembley, we don't really

00:21need to be reminded of that, but where were they at this point last season, and how does

00:25that bode looking ahead to this season?

00:28Well, there's two things with this. Number one, they're actually one point better off

00:31now than they were last season, and the second thing is that the two teams at the top of

00:36the division last season had an awful lot more points than the top two in Sunderland

00:41and Sheffield United did this season. So both of those aspects are positive for Leeds. The

00:47one thing that you would probably say to counteract that is that if that's the case, then why

00:50aren't they in the top two? That's probably the best summary of it, realistically, and

00:55I think a lot of people will feel they probably should be in the top two. I think Daniel Farke

00:59will probably feel that without moaning or complaining too much, because he doesn't really

01:03tend to do that, but he does often obviously say about the stats in the games and stuff

01:06like that, and as we'll talk about, there have been too many games where they've left

01:09with one point or sometimes none when really they should have had three, but that's the

01:13way football is. But the 15th game last season was actually the 1-0 win at Leicester, which

01:17was obviously probably one of the results of the season last season. That left them

01:20on 28 points, so obviously that's one point off the tally where they are now. But it's

01:25staggering when you look at it now, because even that win last season, that still left

01:29them 11 points behind Leicester, which is absolutely a massive gap, really, isn't it?

01:33And it makes you realise how well they did to chase that down. And it still left them

01:37six behind Ipswich, who also had two games in hand. So basically, Ipswich had the chance

01:41at that point to go 12 ahead of them. So compared to where we're at now, obviously with them

01:46both just two points behind both Sunderland and Sheffield United, it's chalk and cheese.

01:51It's dramatically different, obviously, because they are now within one result of leapfrogging

01:56both of those two teams. So that's definitely a positive aspect. What you would say also

02:00is that both those two teams last season, Leicester and Ipswich, at that stage of the

02:06season, everybody thought the question was, can they keep that going? And they most definitely

02:10did. Obviously, Leicester finishing with 97 and Ipswich with 96. Crazy tallies, more than

02:17two points a game average, which obviously meant that 90 for Leeds wasn't enough. And

02:22I think the feeling would probably be that 90 would be enough this season. I mean, even

02:27that's not quite two points a game, is it? It's not far off. But I think if they go with

02:31two points a game or something close to ideally a little bit better, then that probably should

02:35be enough. So, you know, to summarise, they are, well, they are as simple as that. They

02:41are in a better position than they were this stage last season on two fronts. Number one,

02:45because they've got actually more points. And number two, because they're nowhere near

02:49as far away from the automatic promotion places. So it's there in black and white. They are

02:53sort of, if you like, I don't know about ahead of schedule, because the schedule ultimately

02:57didn't end in success last season.