Saints travel to Elland Road with the home fans hoping for that new manager bounce, but the new arrival in the hot seat Javi Gracia has an injury headache before he rallies his troops for the the proverbial six pointer.

Javi Gracia starts his second spell in English football with the same opponents as in his first, back in January 2018 Gracia joined Watford and his new team travelled to St Mary's and where beaten in the FA Cup 1-0 with Jack Stephens scoring in the 4th minute for the only goal of the game.

Stephens is still officially at Southampton, but out on loan at Bournemouth at present, so that means that there will not be one player in that days starting line up who will play in the game at Elland Road, only James Ward Prowse who was an unused sub that day will take part in Saturday's game.

Saints fans will be hoping for a repeat of that result up in Yorkshire this weekend, but Gracia has problems before he even starts, reports say that up to 8 of his squad could be out.

Top scorer Rodrigo hit 10 goals in 18 Premier League games, but he has been out injured for the last month and is not expected to return until April.

Luis Sinisterra has played in 12 of Leeds 23 games and is not expected to be fit for this one, he returned a month ago after 3 months out with injury, but a rush of games in a short period of time has proved a bit much and he missed the last two, defeats to Manchester United and Everton .

Marc Roca has played most of the games in the Premier League for Leeds this season, but not the last 3 and he too is touch and go for this one.

Stuart Dallas is a long term casualty and has not played this season, likewise Max Wober who has played just 5 times both will miss this game, they are joined by other long term injury list members Archie Gray and Adam Forshaw,, they are expected to be back by the end of the campaign, but not for this game and the same applies to Sonny Perkins.

So Gracia could be missing as many as 8 players from the squad, although most of them are longer term injuries there are at least 3 who have played major parts so far.

Rodrigo is the biggest miss, Leeds have scored a respectable 28 Premier League goals and he has 10 of them, that is a lot of firepower missing.

Saints of course have a few injuries themselves, Tino Livramento now having been out for 10 months and clearly suffering a set back in his recovery, but Kyle Walker Peters is returning as is Juan Larios and hopefully Che Adams and Mohammed Salisu will have shaken off the knocks that stopped them being in the squad for Leeds.

Photo: Action Images

DellBoyWally added 15:27 - Feb 22 Hopefully Ruben Selles can continue our bounce. Having suggested we get rid of Nuthin Jones and replace him with Ruben before the Wolves game I definitely want to see him succeed. He has always earned respect wherever he has coached, takes time to explain what he wants, in group sessions or 1-to-1 with individuals and certainly doesn't show up players if they don't understand (Unlike Jones and Djenepo) A major factor with Ruben is the players like him. What better way to get them to listen. Hopefully his character and skills can continue to lift the team. Leeds' new manager (option 15?) might not be in charge if the work permit situation isn't sorted. First PL goals for our new attackers?

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A1079 added 22:17 - Feb 22 I hate these stories about opposing teams having injury concerns etc etc. I cannot think of a single time that it has worked in our favour and we have taken advantage or gone on to win. What usually happens is that the team with the so called injury crisis normally comes away with a 1-0 win. The other thing that normally works against us is opposing players that have not scored for ages - they are guaranteed to break their drought against us. Bamford????

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Boris1977 added 20:45 - Feb 23 Agree with A1079 on both points. Over the past few seasons particularly we have lost too many must wins against 'injury hit' sides that it feels like we're supposed to celebrate the pts on the board before a ball has been kicked. Makes losing even more disappointing. After the elation of last week I'm still feeling positive, not specifically that we'll avoid the drop but that we've got a manager the players believe in which they've not had for a year or so - if not longer. Fingers crossed for Saturday - COYRs

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SeattleSaints added 21:43 - Feb 23 A1079 - Been saying this for years how a player or team that haven't scored/won home/away for ages ect...seem to against Saints. Although, given how Chelsea couldn't score to save their lives I was relieved to see they didn't get over that last week!
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