Leeds vs Norwich Prediction | Opta Analyst

After a goalless draw in the first leg, these two sides meet again at Elland Road on Thursday night for a place in the Championship play-off final at Wembley. We expect this clash with Leeds vs Norwich prediction and preview.

Leeds vs Norwich stats: the quick shots

• Supercomputer Opta rate Leeds as favorites for this match, winning 57.7% of their 90-minute pre-match simulations.
• Leeds have lost their last two games at home and are winless in three at Elland Road going into this game.
• Norwich restricted Leeds to just six shots and 0.25 expected goals in the first leg of this tie – the Yorkshire club’s lowest total of the 2023-24 Championship season.

Match preview

After a goalless draw at Carrow Road in the first leg on May 12, Leeds United and Norwich City meet in the second leg at Elland Road on Thursday for a place in the 2023-24 Championship play-off final at Wembley.

Daniel Farke will be hoping home advantage sees his Leeds side progress to face the winners of the other semi-final between Southampton and West Brom on May 26. Only Ipswich (54) have won more points at home in the Championship this season than Leeds (53), with the Whites losing just twice in 23 games there. However, those losses came the last two home games of the regular season against Blackburn and Southampton.

Farke is one of the most successful managers in Norwich’s history, having won promotion from the Championship twice, both as title winners in 2019 and 2021. He is the only manager to win two league titles at the club.

His current side Leeds have been unlucky not to gain automatic promotion from the Championship this term with one win and four defeats in their last six matches, coupled with outstanding campaigns by both Leicester City and Ipswich Town which have seen them seen missed. finishing third in the table.

The last team to earn up to 90 points in a Championship season and finish outside the automatic promotion places was Sunderland in 1997-98 (also 90 points). Sunderland eventually lost in that season’s play-off final to Charlton Athletic in a penalty shoot-out.

After relegation from the Premier League last season, Leeds refreshed their squad for 2023-24 and had the second-youngest starting XI in the competition this term (24 years, 147 days), behind only Sunderland (22 and 352d).

Of the teams in the Championship play-offs this season, Norwich have spent the fewest days in the top six (102), but their form in the second half of the campaign saw them finish ahead of Hull City in the table for to compete for the final. Premier League ticket.

Like Leeds, Norwich’s late-season form has been far from impressive, with just one win in their last five games and a final-day defeat at relegated Birmingham City. Overall in 2023-24, they picked up just 24 points away from home in the Championship, a number which was more than just five of the competition’s other 23 teams.

David Wagner’s Norfolk job is reportedly under threat before their form changes in 2024 and he will be looking to win promotion to the Premier League for a second time. His first promotion came via the 2017 play-offs when he led Huddersfield to success over Reading in the final following a penalty shoot-out at Wembley.

Leeds – Norwich Head-to-Head

The first leg of this play-off fixture at Carrow Road was largely uneventful with just three shots on target throughout the match. Leeds attempted just six shots in the game, which was their lowest of the season in the Championship, while their total expected goals (xG) of 0.25 was another low in 2023-24.

Norwich will be looking to beat Leeds United for the first time since February 2019 when they won 3-1 at Elland Road under current Leeds boss Farke. Since then, they have gone five games without a win against Leeds, losing four in a row before the 0-0 first leg draw at Carrow Road.

The last time these two clubs met at Elland Road was on January 24, with Leeds winning 1-0 thanks to Patrick Bamford’s 16th-minute strike.

Octa Power Rankings

The Opta Power Rankings is a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale of zero to 100, where zero is the worst ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team from the world.

Ahead of kick-off on Thursday, here are the Opta Power Rankings for both sides.

Leeds vs Norwich Prediction

Leeds are predicted to win this match by supercomputer Opta, with the Yorkshire club victorious in 57.7% of pre-match simulations. Norwich won the match 20% of the time, while a 90-minute draw was played in 22.3% of sims, seeing the tie in extra time.

Overall, Leeds are still favorites to win promotion to the Premier League via this season’s Championship play-offs. They were promoted in 35.5% of the latest Opta supercomputer simulations, ahead of Southampton (31.3%), Norwich (16.6%) and West Brom (16.5%).

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