A midfielder Leeds United boss Marcelo Bielsa could use to give Leicester City's Youri Tielemans what he's expecting

Tielemans, who graced LS11 with a pair of goals and an all-too comfortable performance in that Leicester win almost a year ago, has evidently been well briefed on what Elland Road is like when it’s not empty.

“I think with their fans it’s going to be a different game, and they are maybe in a different mood this season, so we’ll have to be really careful playing away from home, and hopefully we can win the game over there,” Tielemans said.

“It’s going to be another really hard game.”

That cannot be the only difference to his last trip, which ended in a 4-1 win for the Foxes, but if Whites supporters can generate the kind of atmosphere that the second half of the recent Wolves game was played in, then it could prove telling.

The crowd added energy, urgency and impetus against Wolves as a collective realisation that their help was needed dawned upon tens of thousands of people all at once in the second half.

Their noise was continuous and of such a volume that YEP columnist and LUTV broadcaster Tony Dorigo had to adjust the settings on his headphones in order to hear co-commentator Bryn Law.

It was not just another game at Elland Road, a few ‘fans were class’ Tweets could not do it justice. It was a remarkable level of support for a team a goal down and going through a rough start to the season.

If it can be recreated on Sunday, from the start, it can only inspire and motivate.

The noise alone will not make it a hard game for Leicester, of course. Leeds need to be bang at it, on and off the ball, in the way they were not this time last year against the same opponents. Marcelo Bielsa assumed responsibility, saying his distribution of the players was to blame for how easily Leicester played out from the back and how difficult it was for Leeds to win the ball back. When they did have the ball, which was often, they struggled to create chances.

In the return fixture the performance Leeds mustered was much more like it. They were snapping at the Foxes’ ankles early on and they not only created danger but were ruthless in profiting from it.

This time, against a Leicester whose inconsistency is seen in the meagre four-point lead they hold over Leeds, something akin to the King Power Stadium display is called for.

Stuart Dallas played in midfield that day and followed an excellent first half with a solid, hard-working second half, helping to nullify the considerable threat Tielemans poses.

Unless Junior Firpo passes fit in time for Sunday, however, Dallas is likely to be needed either at left-back or, if Brendan Rodgers employs a front two, as a left wing-back. He might even be needed on the right, if Firpo can play but Jamie Shackleton cannot, so someone else will need to take on the responsibility of making Tielemans’ Elland Road experience an unpleasant one.

At Norwich, Kalvin Phillips found himself flanked by Dallas and Shackleton, the trio forming the second bank of three in a 3-3-1-3. They possess defensive nous and bundles of energy, but whether that, with Rodrigo as 10, would be sufficient to combat the Foxes midfield remains to be seen.

If he needs something a little different in midfield, more of a specialist, Bielsa has Mateusz Klich waiting in the wings, a player capable of bringing a nuisance factor. He also has Adam Forshaw, the player to whom he turned instead of Klich for the crucial final 13 minutes at Carrow Road.

“He is healthy, he has been training and the performance of a player is based on whether he is healthy to be able to play,” said Bielsa of Forshaw, still working his way back in after two years out injured.

“Technically and physically he can assimilate the competition and then you have to confirm this data in consecutive games.

“Forshaw is healthy, he has been training and now he has to assimilate a succession of games.”

This season he has accumulated 287 minutes of football, but only 39 of those came in the top flight.

Starting a player yet to prove he can complete a full game would be a risk and only Bielsa knows if he’s ready to trust Forshaw’s health and fitness to that degree.

There were positive signs at Norwich, where Forshaw’s first involvement was to snap at ankles and win the ball back. He got around the pitch well, tried to bring a calming influence to Leeds in possession and tried to press out of it, with some tangible success.

The attacking responsibilities of his No. 8/10 hybrid role meant forward runs to give the player on the ball an option.

Leicester are a completely different proposition to a hapless Norwich side fresh out of ideas, but this is a player of whom Bielsa said: “When he’s recovered healthy and full, he has the characteristics that we can’t buy in the market at the moment.”

The word you would have used to sum up Forshaw’s contribution to Leeds before his injury was control. Leeds are in need of it and Forshaw is in need of a run of games. It has to start somewhere. Why not now?