Leeds United star breaks Championship promotion race mould with honest Sheffield United and Burnley admission

Manor Solomon admits he and his Leeds United teammates had an eye on their Championship promotion rivals 24 hours before Tuesday night’s 2-0 win against Millwall.

Leeds returned to the top of the Championship with another Elland Road victory thanks to an own-goal from Jake Cooper and Ao Tanaka’s assured late finish, with Daniel Farke’s side bouncing back from Sunday’s defeat at Portsmouth. Chris Wilder opted against watching that Fratton Park clash and the consensus inside Sheffield United and Burnley has been to avoid keeping tabs on their rivals.

Scott Parker has instructed his players to stay off the ‘rollercoaster’ of a promotion race but Leeds appear happy to experience the thrill and queue up for another go. Sheffield United and Burnley both dropped points against Bristol City and West Brom respectively on Tuesday evening, with Solomon and his Leeds teammates fully aware of what needed doing at Elland Road a day later.

Solomon on the promotion race

“Of course we look at the league table, we saw the games yesterday but I think the most important thing for us is to look at ourselves and go game by game,” he told LUTV following Wednesday’s defeat of Millwall. “We need to win almost each and every game or at least go with the will to win each game, especially at home.

“We know we are top of the league, we know the results yesterday went in our favour but if we do our job, for sure we will get promoted and finish in first place, where we want to be. We’re in a good place right now, there's no doubt about it but we want to maintain it at the end of the season. There's nine games to go and we want to keep at this level and be even better.”

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Leeds might have hoped Cooper’s early own-goal would settle the nerves on Wednesday but Millwall were never going to roll over, with Alex Neil’s side keeping themselves in the game and holding an obvious threat from set-pieces. Free-flowing it was not, but Farke’s side managed to keep things tight at the back and could easily have doubled their lead through an excellent Joel Piroe goal, but for an offside flag.

Farke’s half-time team-talk

A significant improvement in the second half saw Leeds take complete control of the game and it felt only a matter of time before goal number two, even if it took a little longer than many would like until Tanaka fired home. But a return to winning ways is all that matters and the Whites can now look forward to QPR on Saturday.

“It was really important to take three points today,” Solomon added. “Our performance, especially in the first half, was not great but we were leading. We were 1-0 up which is what is important for us especially after the week we've had, the loss we had, so it was really important to bounce back and take three points.

“We just said at half time we need to raise our level, we all knew our first half was not the best. We were leading 1-0 but we needed to play better, especially at home. The second half was really good. We created a lot of opportunities, I missed, some other players missed.

“We could have scored many more goals but at the end of the day we go home with three points, this is the most important thing especially this time of the season. We need to recover well because we have a really important game on Saturday.”