Joe Gelhardt hails Leeds United ambition and fans as club eye Manchester City youngsters record

A crowd of nearly 10,000 fans descended on Elland Road for last month's under-23s fixture against Manchester United in which the Whites recorded a 3-0 victory but Leeds are hoping to take the attendance to a new level for next Friday night's hosting of City.

The Elland Road contest on Friday, April 22 will mark United's last home game of the season in Premier League Two Division One, in which boss Andy Taylor's fourth-bottom side are fighting for survival.

The young Whites are currently four points clear of the drop zone but having played one game more than second -bottom Chelsea and United's under-23s will take in their third last game of the season away at Brighton on Friday afternoon.

One week later, Leeds will take on City's youngsters at Elland Road in a 7pm kick-off and the club are hoping they can rival the current record attendance for a Premier League Two game which is held by Everton at 16,935.

United had already sold 3,000 tickets for the fixture by Monday and season ticket holders were able to claim a free ticket before Tuesday's 5pm deadline.

Everything points to another huge attendance and teen star Gelhardt says a huge home crowd could even make the difference in helping to keep the under-23s up.

"When I am playing and the fans are there and loud, all it does is edge me on," Gelhardt told the YEP.

"I am assuming it does the same to them lads and it could be that push against a big side like Man City that they could need.

"That could be a crucial few points that we need to stay up.

"We had 10,000 or something against Man United and Liverpool and we played against Palace and I don't think it even got advertised everywhere and there were nearly 5,000 or more there.

"It just shows how unreal the support is.

"I have never had that at under-23s level, I have never seen that type of support and I think that just shows how good the fans are."

Nineteen-year-old forward Gelhardt is now very much part of United's first team squad and the striker is back fit having picked up a dead leg playing for United's under-23s in the Palace game last week.

The teen missed large parts of training during last week but still made the matchday squad for Saturday's Premier League clash at Watford in which he was an unused substitute.

Gelhardt is now expected to feature in Friday's 23s clash at Brighton and the message from the forward is the more games the better.

"I haven't had much exposure to minutes," said Gelhardt.

"Obviously I have had a few knocks, I tried to get minutes with the 23s and I got injured.

"I am just going through a bit of a rough spell at the moment so hopefully I can get through that and get as many minutes as possible because I love playing 23s football as much as first team.

"I just like getting minutes and I just want to get fit and play as much as possible so it's important for me as well."

Asked if it was weird coming back down to play in PL2, Gelhardt reasoned: "It's a lot harder physically playing with the first team but then you go back down to the 23s and we have got a group of lads who do the same as well but we are not the type of people who will take our foot off the gas just because it's an under 23s game.

"We will always try our best and treat it like a first team game and get the most out of it.

"For me, it's a bit weird if it's not at Elland Road with the fans and whatever to give you that extra boost but you still give it 100 per cent always.

"Obviously at this moment in time the aim is to stay in the Premier League and with the 23s as well we can try and stay in the Premier League Two division as well.

"We will give our all to stay in the Prem in both aspects so we are all giving our 100 per cent."