Simon Grayson is asking his players for a win tomorrow, to reward the club’s staff who have worked so hard to make sure the game with Crystal Palace goes ahead.

It looks like the game is going ahead even though temperatures dropped as low as minus twelve this morning, thanks to some tremendous efforts from the club’s groundstaff and the famous undersoil heating. The players have even been able to train all week on the pitches at Thorp Arch.  They called it ‘Operation Buckingham’. Geddit?

On the official site Simon Grayson said “A lot of hard work has gone on to get training on this week. We've had grass to train on which is full testament to them. The groundstaff and stadium staff have certainly worked hard and the fact that the game will be on is down to a lot of hard work from a lot of people. Hopefully the hard work will bear fruition with a result and a performance. So many clubs will go a full week without training on grass. I don't think we could do much more in terms of our own preparation, now we have to approach the game in a right manner.”

Grayson has one enforced change to make, but has indicated that he will otherwise stick with the players who have achieved an improvement in our results over the last six games. Paul Connolly will have to serve a one-match suspension after picking up his fifth booking of the season, and Andy Hughes is likely to be the man to come in at right-back to replace him, assuming that Bromby and Crowe are still out of favour. Otherwise the manager said "There won't be too many changes .The back-four have worked hard and been solid. They've been resilient and put bodies on the line.”

But Grayson has warned that we can’t afford to be complacent, as Palace have also seen an improvement in their results in recent weeks. Last season they only avoided relegation on the final day of the season after a ten point penalty for going into administration, and the poor state of their finances still seemed to affect them this time around as they began the campaign facing another battle against relegation. But they have now won three out of their last four games, to climb to the dizzy heights of 22^nd. place.

Their assistant manager is our former loan star Dougie Freedman, who told the Yorkshire Post that the turnaround came as one or two players returned from injury. "There's no extraordinary difference between how we're playing now and how we were playing a month ago But in terms of results, you could say we've turned the corner. It's not a mystery. Basically, we've finally got a fully-fit squad – or thereabouts – and that's helping no end. I can see the confidence rising. If you look through our squad you'll see a lot of decent players but that's not much consolation when a bunch of them are injured. As much as I hate using the word luck, I don't think we've had a lot of it”.

That said, Palace still have a couple of injury problems to contend with. In midfield they are likely to be without Alex Marrow, who has an ankle injury, while Owen Garvan is serving a two-game ban.  Defender Paddy McCarthy is still out with a groin injury, so Anthony Gardner will partner Claude Davis at centre-back.

So what should I predict for this clash of the two in-form teams? I think Leeds will be too good for them on our own patch, so I’ll go for a home win, but only by the odd goal.

Photo: Action Images

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