Leeds United: Fortress Elland taking shape
By Graham Smeaton on Jan 18, 2017 Championship, Featured, Leeds United, News
Seasons are usually founded on 46 games worth of results, results picked up across both home and away fixtures. One thing fans tend to expect though is a strong set of home performances.
These strings of performances lay down a marker, a platform to build the rest of the season on. The home form comes to be what fans expect as a season develops. That oft-used phrase of ‘Fortress’ is placed in front of football grounds to show a sense of growing impregnability. A certain sense of strength and fortitude.
Opposing teams fear visiting, with often the crowd becoming, and excuse the Americanism, the ’12th Man’ – that additional, and mystical element that helps push a team over the finishing line and guarantee them X points a season.
Elland Road was one of these afeared places, and is rapidly becoming so again.
2016/17 Sky Bet League Championship
Leeds United have played 26 games of the season so far, gaining 48 points from these games. Of the total games played, Leeds have played 14 at Elland Road and have 29 points to show from their home games – 60% of their season’s points total. This is good enough to put the Whites as the joint-first rated home side for points gained – although they have played two more games than Brighton, the team they share the accolade with.
Leeds have only conceded nine times across these 14 games (0.64 goals per game), keeping seven clean sheets, and have won their last five games at Elland Road without conceding, scoring nine goals themselves in the process.
It is this form, especially over the last five games, that is begining to get Leeds United fans not only excited, but also justifiably comfortable in calling their home ground ‘Fortress Elland Road’ once again.
The question is though, how does the 2016/17 variant of ‘Fortress Elland Road’ measure up to previous incarnations. To begin to answer that, I have looked back at two seasons home performances after 26 total league game: the 2014/15 Sky Bet Championship season (the first of Cellino’s reign) and the 1991/92 First Division (Leeds’ title winning campaign).
2014/15 season – Leeds United home performance
â—¾Rated 15th, 19 points (1.46 points per game), 12 goals conceded (0.92 goals per game), five clean sheets
1991/92 season – Leeds United home performance
â—¾Rated joint-4th, 27 points (2.08 points per game), 12 goals conceded (0.92 goals per game), seven clean sheets
A mean defence, check. A still-baying crowd, check. An intimidating and bear-pit atmosphere to visit, check. It’s looking more like 1991/92 this season at Elland Road that 2014/15.
It may be becoming ‘Fortress Elland Road’ once again, but is it too early to start to dream?