Why Leeds United should be bettering Sheffield United - according to the stats

Defeats to Wigan Athletic and Brentford have seen the club drop to third in the Championship table, three and six points behind Sheffield United and Norwich City respectively. Only two games remain of the regular season.

Marcelo Bielsa's men welcome Aston Villa to Elland Road on Sunday before completing the league campaign with a trip to Ipswich Town.

However, using data from Opta Stats, football analytics purveyor Ray Hamil has shown that Leeds should have been outperforming both the Blades and the Canaries over the last six games.

The expected goals (xG) metric show the whites are actually at the peak of their powers in terms of creating goal-scoring chances while also keeping opposition opportunities to a premium, as opposed to Sheffield United whose xG for goals scored and conceded are very simialr.

A possible explanation is that Leeds are not taking the chances they are being presented with, while the opportunities they are giving up are ones opponents can't miss.

Meanwhile, since the 3-3 draw with Aston Villa in February Blades boss Chris Wilder has clearly focused on tightening up the defence with ten clean sheets recorded in 13 games.

According to Wyscout, Leeds' expected goals against is 41, as opposed to the 46 they have conceded. They have the third best defence in the league.

In terms of scoring, Leeds are performing to their expected goals with 70 but the Blades are outperforming there figure by seven goals.