Danny Mills, a former Leeds United defender, believes his old club has a good chance of gaining automatic promotion to the Premier League.
The Whites have impressed in the early rounds of the Championship this season, but they are currently outside of the automatic promotion places.
Table-toppers Leicester City lead Daniel Farke‘s team by 11 points, while Leeds and second-placed Ipswich Town are separated by seven points.
Mills, a former Leeds player and England international, believes it is too soon to sentence the club to a finish outside the top two.
“There’s a long, long way to go in the Championship,” he told The Yorkshire Post via Grosvenor Sport. We’re just about a fourth of the way done.
“They need depth, they need to keep players fit and manage how they play.”
“Looking at the players they have, [Crysencio] Summerville is a good player. Dan James is a really good player at that level. Sam Byram has arrived; he’s definitely been away, and he now has experience.
“[Joe] Rodon has experience at this level. [Georginio] Rutter seemed to be content at this level.
“You’ve got strength in depth on the bench, youngster’s coming through, I think they’ve got a great chance to make [an] automatic [promotion place].”
A recent victory over Leicester City narrowed the gap between the Whites and the Foxes, yet the latter remain strong favourites to win the Championship in May.
Leeds are now in the play-offs, but the end-of-season show may be something the Elland Road crowd would want to avoid.
The tough knockout format may effectively end a season, and Leeds has unpleasant play-off experiences.
Doncaster Rovers and Millwall were both denied promotions to the Championship in the late 2000s, a decade before Marcelo Bielsa‘s Leeds were thwarted by Derby County.
Bielsa‘s side recovered to win the Championship title at the conclusion of the next season, yet there have been cases of clubs failing in the aftermath of play-off disappointment.
Huddersfield Town, Leeds‘ Yorkshire rivals, serve as a reminder of the cruel aspect of the play-offs, having declined since losing to Nottingham Forest at Wembley in 2022.
“Automatic promotion has to be the standard,” Mills added. Nobody wants to go through the playoffs, so that’s what they have to be looking for.
“We saw that when they played Derby under [Marcelo] Bielsa.” It can all go horribly wrong in 45 minutes after you’ve had a very long, very productive season.”
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