Norwich City manager David Wagner has previewed his team’s Championship play-off semi-final against Leeds United.
The two sides will square off at Carrow Road on Sunday in the first of two matches to determine who will go to Wembley Stadium to face Southampton or West Bromwich Albion.
Leeds will hope to take a strong result into the return meeting at Elland Road next Thursday, where they will have home advantage.
Not one of the four teams competing in the play-offs will be in strong form, but Leeds may have the most difficult challenge of getting across the line at the conclusion of the season.
Not one of the four teams competing in the play-offs will be in strong form, but Leeds may have the most difficult challenge of getting across the line at the conclusion of the season.
A sequence of four defeats in their last six matches saw them just miss out on a top-two finish, and no team in Championship history has ever won the play-offs with such a record.
Wagner makes ‘on the beach’ comment about Leeds before of the Norwich clash.
Though OPTA ranks Leeds as the favourites to be promoted after finishing third, fans are not overly optimistic about their team’s chances.
Norwich are the only team in the top six that Leeds has beaten in the regular season, as they completed a league double over the Canaries.
With all of these considerations in mind, Wagner has already attempted to put all of the pressure on Leeds ahead of Sunday, and he did so again yesterday in his news conference.
The Norwich manager believes Leeds should have been ‘on the beach’ after missing out on automatic promotion, but he now insists their chances of promotion are the same as his Norwich side’s.
He stated, “The truth is that they know almost everything about us, and we know everything about them.” Momentum, in my experience, is not the deciding element. If they had beaten QPR and Southampton, they would be on the beach right now, whilst we are still fighting.
“90 points were insufficient to meet their aim of automatic promotion. They now have the same 25% probability we do. You always ask for a chance in life, and we shall be ready.”
Sam Allardyce reveals who he wants to win the play-offs.
It’s been a year since Sam Allardyce took command of Leeds United for four games, but his interim tenure was insufficient to keep the club in the Premier League.
Allardyce, who clearly liked his time at Elland Road, is fully behind his former club to do the business and then stabilise in the top tier.
He stated: “Obviously, I want Leeds because I was there last season and discovered it to be a fantastic club in such a short period of time. Hopefully, they will return and find some stability in their attempt to stay there this time around.
“It’s been a wonderful season for them, but if they don’t make it, as with everything else, what happens financially? They have to make budgetary cuts again, which makes things more difficult.”
