Simon Grayson has urged the players to avoid a repeat of the Preston fiasco when they face Leicester City tonight.

This is the first home game since that debacle, and Grayson told the Yorkshire Post "We've got some unfinished business from the last time we were at Elland Road. That hurt the players and it hurt me as well. For as long as I've been here, Elland Road has been a really difficult place to play and that's how I want it to be. We basically lost a game that we shouldn't have lost, and certainly not by that scoreline. There aren't many times you lose a game after being 4-1 up and it should never happen again.”

No, we shouldn’t have conceded that many goals in one game, but Hughes and Collins were left cruelly exposed that night, and Grayson will have to make a few careful selections to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. He will have Alex Bruce available again after a one match suspension, but there are three new problems to contend with after the game at Midlesboro.  Faye should recover from the knock he took during the game, but Watt’s problem was more serious and he is unlikely to play.

McCartney was substituted on Saturday due to illness, and is also unlikely to play tonight, while none of our longer term absentees are likely to be back. Schmeichel and Higgs are still out, so Brown will continue in goal, while Parker, Paynter and Kisnorbo have yet to recover from injury.

But of course, much of the media coverage of tonight’s game will centre on the fact that it’s their first away game under their new boss Sven Goran Eriksson. The Foxes were surprised to find themselves in the relegation places after reaching the play-offs in their first season back in the Championship, and this poor start saw Paulo Sousa dismissed after only ten league games in charge. But Grayson has warned his players not to take it easy despite the visitors’ league position, as Sven is likely to start to improve the fortunes of the East Midlands club.

 "I'm sure he'll turn round the fortunes of Leicester. It's basically the same set of players who got to the play-offs last season and it's probably about confidence with them at the moment. But I said before the weekend that I wanted to heap a bit more misery on Gordon (Strachan) and I managed to do that. Hopefully I can do the same to one of my former clubs." Against Hull on Saturday Leicester began well but faded in the second half, which Sven thought might be down to a lack of fitness and confidence.

"We played 50 per cent of the game well on Saturday and the other half not so good, so we have to try to do it better at Leeds. We need to play the ball a little bit quicker and try to keep it better. We need to keep the tempo of the game for 90 minutes and I think we only did that for 45 minutes last week. That is important if we are to start to win games. If you want to win games at this level you have to control the game and we lost that too much on Saturday."

Leicester also have a few fitness problems to resolve, as they will be without wingers Lloyd Dyer (hamstring) and Dany N'Guessan (ankle) as well as defender Miguel Vitor (hamstring), while striker Matty Fryatt serves the last of his three-game suspension.

By the sound of it, Leeds should have a chance of getting the points if we can be patient and keep pressing them right to the end, so I’ll plump for a Leeds win, with the winning goal coming deep into second half injury time!

Photo: Action Images

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