Leeds and Norwich were promoted together in 2010 - what are their chances this season?  

Leeds United's Pablo Hernandez (top left) celebrates scoring his side's third goal of the game with team-mate Luke Ayling during the Sky Bet Championship match at Carrow Road
Leeds celebrate scoring their third goal in the 3-0 victory over Norwich last August Credit: Mark Pain/PA

Ten years ago Norwich City and Leeds United, who meet on Saturday evening at Elland Road in the Championship, were in first and second place in League One after 29 games of the 2009-10 season.

As winter retreated and hares, demented by lust, began to spar, Norwich progressed serenely towards the title while Leeds drove their supporters round the twist with four successive defeats in March, one of them at Carrow Road.

The mood was bleak. Optimists were characterised as Pollyannas on message boards enjoying a last gasp of supremacy before being engulfed by the Twitter tide while pessimists were busily practising the last rites like vindictive, novice priests on amphetamine sulphate.

April brought a revival in form and fortune, though much of the autumn fluency had gone, and Leeds won four of their next six games without ever quietening anyone’s anxiety.

Inevitably the final match of the season against Bristol Rovers, when three points would hold off Millwall’s surge and assure promotion free of play-off purgatory, was as stressful and tumultuous as the preceding weeks. In the end Leeds, a man down for an hour, prevailed, coming back from a goal behind to win 2-1 and go up with Norwich.  

Jermaine Beckford of Leeds United celebrates scoring to make it 2-1 during the Coca Cola League One match between Leeds United and Bristol Rovers at Elland Road
Jermaine Beckford scores the winning goal against Bristol Rovers in 2010 that helped Leeds secure promotion with Norwich from League One after a spring wobble Credit: Michael Regan/Getty Images

In 1989-90, the last time Leeds won promotion out of this division, the slump came a month later than 2010’s and a 12-point lead over third place with nine games left in late March shrivelled to two after three defeats and three draws from the next seven games. They rallied to win the last two games and go up as champions – an intoxicating upturn on this 55-year helter skelter ride that has been, in the words of Anthony Soprano, “always with the drama”.

Victory for Sheffield United over Bolton on Saturday afternoon would push them above Norwich on goal difference and deprive this match of its first v second status but not its stature.

Leeds have a decent recent home league record in this fixture, winning four and losing only one of the last eight. It is the 2-2 Championship draw at Elland Road in Feb 2011 when City were third and the home side sixth, however, that emphasises most vehemently what is at stake.

Norwich went on to finish runners-up to QPR and earned back-to-back promotions while Leeds, after an April stumble of three defeats and two draws from five successive games, took seventh place, three points outside the play-offs. Yet by January 2013, 23 months after that meeting, four of Leeds’ starting XI from that day – Bradley Johnson, Jonny Howson, Robert Snodgrass and Luciano Becchio – were Norwich players, the first treated so shabbily that he ran down his contract, the other three sold by Ken Bates.

Failure in a promotion race has as much transformational impact as going up.  Clubs might be level on adjacent escalators for a moment, but when one glides up the other doesn’t stay still, it sinks down.

So, what do the trends of the past 10 years reveal about how this could unfold, the plausibility of promotion and with it the likelihood of retaining their best players?

Wesley Hoolahan of Norwich in action with Andy O'Brien and Robert Snodgrass
Four of the Leeds starting XI  including Robert Snodgrass, left, who took on Norwich in 2011 subsequently moved to Carrow Road Credit: Action Images / John Clifton Livepic

The happiest omen for Leeds in first place after 29 games at the end of January is that over the past 10 seasons 90 per cent of clubs who were top after that number of games have clinched automatic promotion and 80 per cent of them went up as champions.

Moreover eight out of 10 sides leading the Championship at the start of February finished in either first or second place. Only West Ham in 2012 (top at the end of Jan and after 29 games) and Hull City (in first on Jan 31 2016) slipped back into the play-off places and even so both went up after winning at Wembley.

Now Leeds, who have lost play-off finals in 1987, 2006 and 2008, need the tension of the play-offs like a hole in the head so they can take some comfort from the fates of their predecessors. The tidings are significantly less auspicious for the clubs in second place at the same junctures in the past 10 seasons.

Five of 10 clubs in second place after 29 games since 2008-09 have gone up as runners-up and four in second as January ended went on to earn automatic promotion, one of them, Newcastle in 2016-17, as champions. Of the five clubs who subsequently did not finish in the top two, only QPR in 2013-14 went up via the play-offs.

Leeds have 57 points after 29 games, a long way behind Leicester’s 66 in 2014, but among the middle rank of Championship leaders from the period. Wolves, who had 65 last season, had made substantial investments, Newcastle, who had parachute payments both times, compiled 62 points in 2016 and 59 in 2010 while Cardiff, who didn’t, had 63 in 2013.

Watford's Jay DeMerit, centre, of the U.S. scores against Leeds United during the English Championship play-off final at Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, Sunday May 21, 2006
No Leeds fan would willingly choose to endure the torture of the play-offs again Credit: AP Photo/ Nick Potts/PA

Leeds have exactly the same as Middlesbrough in 2016, Bournemouth the year before and one more than West Ham in 2012 and QPR in 2011. Their six defeats are the same or fewer than all but four of the division leaders - (Wolves had lost four in 2017-18, Leicester five in 2013-14, QPR three in 2010-11 and Newcastle four in 2009-10) - and 17 victories puts them in the middle rank of those clubs.    

Football fans are nothing if not contradictory, maintaining a cognitive dissonance that allows them to dredge up KC and the Sunshine Band and sing “going up, going up. Leeds are going up,” at matches and around town but would never dream of writing it down. Harrowing experience has taught them that it doesn’t come easy and, viz Tony Soprano, there is usually a dalliance with melodrama before the curtain falls.

Over the course of a January fortnight Leeds recaptured their best to defeat Derby, huffed and puffed in defeat by Stoke and scrapped their way to a scruffy but priceless late away win at Rotherham.

How they perform against Norwich will probably depend on the space the opposition allows them and at Carrow Road the yellow shirts were forced into perennial retreat.

They have turned their season round magnificently since then and Leeds know they are up against a far more opportunistic and purposeful team. Going into the game top of the Championship, though, puts history on their side for the rest of the season.

License this content