Archie Gray eyes big Leeds United chance with Whites table aim and Sunderland verdict

Leeds saw their seven-game unbeaten run ended in Tuesday night’s 1-0 defeat at Sunderland which has left the third-placed Whites ten points off the division’s automatic promotion places in which leaders Leicester City and second-placed Ipswich Town are setting a record-breaking pace.

Gray, though, has highlighted the upcoming Festive period as a particularly big opportunity for his side to climb the table given the sheer amount of fixtures leading up to the new year. Top two Leicester and Ipswich have both won their last three games but Gray says his side are only focused on themselves and that Leeds must “keep pushing” their promotion rivals ahead of this afternoon’s visit of Coventry City.

"We are just focusing on ourselves and not looking and focusing on everyone around the table,” said 17-year-old Whites star Gray to LUTV. "It's more on what we are doing and if they keep doing what they are doing then we have got to keep doing what we are doing and keep getting results and keep pushing them.

"There's loads of games so just try to get as many points as we can and as many good performances as we can to just try and climb our way up in the table and take every game as it comes. There are obviously so many games in this period and it's probably one of the most important periods of the season."

Reflecting on Tuesday night’s defeat at Sunderland but also last weekend’s 2-0 win at Blackburn, Gray reasoned: “They were obviously two really tough games and two really tough opponents and obviously we are just looking to bounce back this weekend, especially after the last result.

"Blackburn was a good game and at Sunderland, sometimes we found it hard to play in spaces that they made hard for us. It was a tough game, both were tough games but we are just looking to bounce back on the weekend."