Assignment against shining example Leicester City will help Leeds United grow - David Prutton

But you know for a fact that Whites head coach Marcelo Bielsa will have been working his players as hard as he possibly can to keep them in tip-top form.

Really, after United’s second-half performance in last Friday’s 3-0 win at Aston Villa and the clinical finishes from Patrick Bamford, you would want to be playing pretty sharpish after that to keep up the good work.

But 10 days is a decent chunk of time to get some of the walking wounded back fit.

Leicester played on Thursday away against AEK Athens in the Europa League and in the games that I have seen where teams have been playing Thursday and Sunday sometimes there can be a slight sluggishness to them.

But I can’t think for one second that either Leeds will rest on their laurels and rely on that being a fact or Leicester buying into that and making it straightforward for Leeds.

It has got all the makings of a cracking game.

Leicester are a cracking side and, given the inconsistent nature of some of the teams we have seen at the start of the season, they, on their day, are quite capable of really hurting a football team.

We talk about these sides that Leeds come up against that have got themselves back into the Premier League and established themselves and, in Leicester’s case, they have then gone on to win the whole thing.

They are a great example of how to run a football club and how to progress as a football club and they will be a good yardstick for Leeds to measure themselves against.

But Leeds should absolutely go into the game full of confidence given how well they have looked and how clinical they have been so far.

I could definitely see Leicester sitting back and looking to hit Leeds on the counter through Jamie Vardy but that’s the differentials of the different teams in the Premier League.

The threats offered and posed by different teams are varied and fantastic really and I think it helps Leeds’ growth back in the Premier League and helps them navigate their way through this next block of games.

There has got to be a focus on what Leicester can do but, ultimately, Leeds have got to stick to what they have done so far, which has served them really well.

I’ve no doubts that just as Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers will be waxing lyrical about how good his team can be, I am sure he will be very wary of what Leeds can do.

Vardy’s rise has been a wonderful story and being capped off by being the man that spearheaded them to winning the league is kind of fairytale/Hollywood dreams type of stuff.

That’s testament to Vardy’s tenacity, will power and desire never to give up on his dream and it has borne fruit tenfold.

He is a cracking example from a footballing point of view of not taking no for an answer and working his way to the very top of his profession.

It’s not the most common case where you see a player getting older whose pace does not seem to be diminishing but he finds himself in that position.

Some players at Leicester have moved on to seemingly what they thought were greener pastures but what Leicester have done around the anniversary of the shocking death of their owner just goes to show as a club how wonderfully well they have done.

With Vardy, it’s about denying him the time and space to be able to do what he does best, which is move through vast open patches of grass at a very high speed.

I am not saying Leeds should just sit back and make the pitch as big as possible but it will have to be a collective effort and not just regarding who is playing more centrally in defence.

Vardy also likes to pull out wide which means that, as a whole defensive unit, you have got to be very wary and, as deep lying midfielders, you have got to be very wary as well.

With anyone who is particularly fast, denying them space to be able to run into is part of the way you go about it but also it’s about trying to cut off the supply line.

Given how quickly Leeds move the ball around and how quickly they close the opposition down, that’s part and parcel of what makes them so functional when they are at their very best.

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Thank you Laura Collins