Wigan tie a measure of where Leeds are

Kevin McCarra on how once mighty sides should be wiser after their latest tests against Premiership opposition

Leeds United showed loads of fighting spirit when last they played Wigan, but it was team-mates who did the battling. Sean Gregan and Gary Kelly had a row in the first half of a 3-0 defeat and there were reports of police scrambling for the visitors' dressing room at the interval as well. Wigan beat Kevin Blackwell's side with some disdain that afternoon in February 2005.

In the FA Cup tie at the JJB Stadium today Leeds want to show how much has changed. There is superficial encouragement in the opposition's recent Premiership losses to Blackburn and Birmingham and in the uncertainty over the sort of line-up Paul Jewell will pick.

Whatever the outcome, Leeds are one of a number of clubs in the FA Cup third round who will be wiser after undergoing the test of meeting full Premiership standards. Like Norwich and Reading, they are, in a one-off occasion, taking on the sort of teams they will have to deal with regularly next season if they find their way into the top flight.

Leeds, third in the Championship, are pencilling themselves in for the play-offs. There are the faintest overtones of the ostentatiously well-equipped club they once were. For the 3-0 victory over Plymouth, they were able to start with Richard Cresswell and Robbie Blake in attack, bring on Rob Hulse for the latter and have no need at all to prise David Healy from the bench.

Leeds have also extended the loan of Manchester United midfielder Liam Miller for the rest of the season. The 24-year-old former Celtic player has made 10 appearances in his first spell at Elland Road, scoring the winner in the memorable 4-3 win over Southampton.

Blackwell believes Miller will aid United's push for promotion in the second half of the season and the Irishman has been registered in time to face Wigan.

Jose Mourinho will not have been drooling at Leeds' financial dealings, but those sort of means bring a pang to the heart of many a manager in the Championship. The recovery at Elland Road has been rapid. Leeds were in an inferno of debt and there was so much firefighting to be done that it seemed, after relegation in 2004, that sending out any sort of line-up to fulfil fixtures was Blackwell's principal ambition.

According to the manager, Leeds were on the verge of going out of business at the time Ken Bates took over on January 21st, 2005. Any debate over the merits of the new owner was rendered null and void when the alternative was extinction. It is indisputable, too, that the condition of the side has improved. Against the backdrop of recently derelict finances the outlay of £800,000 on Blake was a show-stopper.

Now there is to be a sterner reappraisal of the actual prospects at Elland Road. Cup competitions do that to a club like Leeds, where dreams are the last things to be stripped away by the creditors. The 3-0 beating by Blackburn in the League Cup told Blackwell and everyone else that the Championship is precisely where Leeds belong.

Today's tie at the JJB is the first chance to challenge the judgment.

Others are in a comparable position. Relegation may not have been the close-up of extinction for Norwich as it was for Leeds, but there has been a disorientation at finding themselves back among the lower orders.

Having won five consecutive matches in December Nigel Worthington was named Championship manager of the month, but the announcement was not made until Norwich had gone down 3-0 at home to Preston on Monday. He can field about half the side that played in the Premiership but the impact has been fitful.

Dean Ashton may be depicted as a future England international but had not scored since late September before he produced a hat-trick against Southampton on December 17th. Even as they celebrated, the fans were wondering how much his form had been stimulated by the fact that the transfer window would soon open. A supposed price of £7 million has discouraged business so far, but he could leave shortly.

Such unsettling factors may be more insidiously harmful to the smooth running of Carrow Road than, say, the absence from today's home tie with West Ham of Darren Huckerby, who is banned, and Youssef Safri, bound for the build-up to the African Nations Cup.

The aftermath of a Premiership season can be an obstacle to returning there. Reading, at least, have no such problems. Their leadership of the Championship is as lofty a perch as they have ever known. Steve Coppell's well-put-together side travel to The Hawthorns but cannot be sure how they compare even with a West Brom team obliged to field a makeshift centre-back pairing. Reading have already been trounced 3-0 at Highbury this season by the young, tearaway line-up that Arsenal unleash in the League Cup.

Is it better to bear the scars of the Premiership, like Leeds and Norwich, or, as Reading will, take on one of its members in a state of freshness and possible vulnerability?

Guardian Service