RUSSELL: WE'LL PLAY WITH CONFIDENCE
Club News
10th April
Cardiff City manager Russell Slade spoke to the media on Friday morning ahead of this weekend’s match at Elland Road.
Neil Redfearn's side have a strong home record this season, with victories over promotion challengers Middlesborough, Derby, Bournemouth and Ipswich amongst others while City head into this match unbeaten on the road since late-January.
“We’ve been very consistent and resilient on the road of late," he said. "Leeds are very open and have some very good individuals. Going forward, they can score goals, and their 4-3 game against Wolves last time out typified that. They’ve taken points from Bournemouth and Ipswich, so they’ve shown that they can beat some of the better teams in the league and score goals against them. At times, though, they’ve been slightly vulnerable defensively.
“Leeds do have some strong midfielders; Alex Mowatt has great feet and has a knack of getting in and around the goals.
"They have some good young players, with Lewis Cook and Sam Byram in that group as well. Mowatt has a lot of games under his belt now for somebody as young as twenty, and he’ll be very dangerous.”
The Club confirmed on Thursday that away tickets for the Sky Bet Championship trip to Leeds would be returned, a decision supported by the Bluebirds manager.
“Our fans have been fantastic on the road, so we’d of course miss that if we had no fans in the stadium. The Trust and the Supporters’ Club were unhappy with our allocation, and we’ve backed that. We didn’t feel the need to place any restrictions on them, and we wanted the same going the other way, which we have had for the last few seasons.
“It’ll give us an extra incentive; we’ll want to go out and get the result for the ones who can’t be there.
“We’ll handle the situation professionally, and look for a positive result."
The Gaffer also gave an update on the fitness of the Bluebirds squad ahead of the trip to Yorkshire: “There are only one or two niggles with players that we’ve had to be careful with. The players have had two games in three days, so we’ll handle that. There’ll be no Alex Revell this weekend: it’s a grade one, so it may be between ten and fourteen days. He could be back for the last couple of games.
“It’s been great to get Joe Mason back in before the end of the season, and to be able to give young players like Joe Ralls more pitch time. Anthony Pilkington and Kagisho Dikgacoi play an U21 game today, and Scott Young will go up and watch them. Ben Turner is also on the way back, but it’s looking like Pilks is the closest at the moment.”
