Injury blow for Leeds United promotion rivals ahead of West Brom test

Leeds United will head into Sunday’s visit to Derby County knowing a win at Pride Park would ensure they sit at the top of the Championship table on the first day of the 2025.

The Whites boosted their promotion hopes and moved to the top of the table as they claimed a 2-0 win at Stoke City thanks to goals either side of half-time from forward Joel Piroe. The win at the Bet365 Stadium was made all the sweeter after it was confirmed previous leaders Sheffield United had suffered a 2-0 home defeat against fellow promotion contenders Burnley. Intriguingly, that all means the three clubs are separated by just one point ahead of their final fixtures of the calendar year this weekend.

The Blades will get the first chance to land a blow in the promotion race when they host West Bromwich Albion in a lunchtime kick-off - although manager Chris Wilder has revealed he is anxiously awaiting news on the fitness of one key defender who picked up an injury in his side’s Boxing Day defeat against the Clarets. Harry Souttar has been sent for a scan and the Blades boss has admitted he could be facing up to ‘a big blow’ should his fears over the severity of the injury be confirmed over the coming days.

He told The Sheffield Star: “We lost Rhys Norrington-Davies to illness and Rhian (Brewster) wasn’t great in the last couple of days. Vini’s (Vinicius Souza) hamstring tightened up and Jes (Rak-Sakyi) wasn’t able to be involved because of a tight hamstring he had off the back of the game at Cardiff. They’re minor blows, but there might be a big blow coming with Souttar because that didn’t look great, and his reaction to coming off wasn’t good. He’s a brave old soldier but that didn’t look great. So we’ll have to wait and see what the results of the scans are. It doesn’t look good, but we’ll see what happens when the results of the scan come through.”

No matter what happens in Wilder’s side’s meeting with the Baggies, Leeds will top the table with a win at Derby in a 5.45pm kick-off. Burnley are the last of the top three to play on Sunday as they travel to Middlesbrough for an 8pm kick-off that will round off an action-packed day across the second tier.