As they want to return to the Premier League right away, Leeds United’s season appears to be coming to a stressful close.

Apart from the slots up for promotion at the end of the campaign, the Whites are now in third place. Leeds and Southampton are tied for second position with one point separating them, while leaders Leicester City lead Daniel Farke’s team by 12 points at the top of the standings.

In the table, Ipswich Town trails Leeds by just one point as well. As the games get closer, there is an increasing likelihood that there will be a four-horse battle for the top two spots.

Leeds will face Southampton at Elland Road in their season-ending match, which will provide even more drama. It remains to be seen if the result of the final table will be determined by that game.

Leeds’ primary goal at this point will be to maintain scoring points in order to maintain pressure on the top two. Although Leicester leads by a small margin, attention will be focused on the second automatic position.

The attacking ability that Farke possesses this season has received a lot of attention. Despite being the fourth-highest goal scorer in the Championship this season, Leeds is crucially below the three teams above them in that particular league: Southampton, Ipswich, and Leicester.

Crysencio Summerville has scored 12 goals this season, placing him among the league’s leading scorers thus far.Joel Piroe and Patrick Bamford are two more Leeds players who can score goals, while Dan James is not far behind with ten.

Leeds’ hidden weapon between now and the end of the season, though, might be at the opposite end of the pitch. Throughout the Premier League season previous year, the squad received criticism for their weaknesses on defence.

This season, however, things are different because Leeds’ defensive has quietly improved while the attacking side has received most of the attention. As a matter of fact, they are the only team in the clean sheet table behind West Bromwich Albion, having prevented opposition from scoring 12 times so far this season—one more than Leicester City, who lead with 11, and crucially, ahead of Southampton and Ipswich, who both have nine.

Leeds has only allowed one league goal in 2024, which came in a 2-1 victory over Preston North End. They’ll try to keep up this trend when they play bottom-of-the-table Rotherham United on Saturday when they return to Championship action.

Keep them out if you want to finish as high up as possible. Scoring goals is a major influence in who gets promoted at the conclusion of the season. When the season is almost over, Leeds’ defence might just make the difference.