Leeds v Brentford: Premier League – live

Nothing is too niche for the internet:

41 mins: Leeds’ best move of the match comes when Wober snuffs out a Brentford attack and fizzes the ball into the feet of Rodrigo to spark a counter. The striker picks out Harrison with a great first-time ball but the midfielder, with acres to run into, takes a painfully heavy touch and loses possession. What a waste.

39 mins: Rodrigo does well to engineer a yard of space on the edge of the box, but his left-foot shot is undercooked and easily gathered by Raya.

37 mins: Chance for Brentford. A deep cross from Roerslev sails just over Toney but falls to the feet of Henry, who’s arriving into the box from the left. Faced with the choice to shoot from an angle or send it square for a Toney tap-in, he opts for the latter but Koch has spotted it and lunges in to intercept at the final moment.

33 mins: Toney, who a minute ago brought down a high ball with a majestic piece of control, tries to catch Meslier sleeping at the near post with a speculative shot from range. Wide.

31 mins: As if he’s been told the game needs a touch of class, Gnonto nutmegs his man on the left and plays a neat one-two with Rodrigo. The return pass is a touch too strong though and the attack fizzles out after he’s forced wide. But a welcome moment of quality from the Leeds youngster.

28 mins: Momentarily fired up, Leeds storm forward. Harrison whips a nice ball into the box, it’s only half-cleared and breaks to Aaronson, whose shot is desperately blocked by a prone Brentford defender. The volume at Elland Road goes up a notch.

26 mins: Fight! Adams and Jensen tussle for possession on the sideline and turn it into a full-on playground shoving match once the ball has gone out of play. The assumes the role of teacher, scolding the both of them and sending them on their way.

23 mins: Mbeumo whips in an inswinging cross after taking a short corner and Meslier flies out confidently to punch it away one-fisted. Pinnock retrieves the ball and shapes in a cross from the left that skips across on the top of the crossbar, but it had swung out of play.

20 mins: David Raya takes his sweet time over a free-kick midway inside the Brentford half. He looks at the picture ahead of him, identifies his target, sets himself … and bloots it straight out of play for a goal kick.

Joe Pearson solves the mystery: “I seemed to recall that snoods were banned some years ago, so I looked it up. Sure enough FIFA banned the snood in 2011. That’s just one example of the impact Carlos Tevez had on the game.”

13 mins: Wober takes it left-footed looking to curl his shot over the wall. He does that much, but the ball won’t drop it time and sails harmlessly over.

12 mins: Jensen is caught dilly-dallying on the ball on the edge of his own box and as Aaronson drives into the area, he’s brought down by Norgaard. By a matter of inches, it’s a free-kick.

6 mins: The game has settled a bit, with both sides enjoying extended spells of possession. The visitors are perhaps playing a tad deeper, with the view to breaking smartly –which they nearly do down the left until Wober intervenes with a sliding challenge.

3 mins: Little pattern to the play so far. After good works from Adams, Harrison breaks forward and tries to pick out the darting run of Rodrigo but gets his angles wrong and the striker, having to halt his run, miscontrols.

1 min: And we’re off. Brentford kick off and loft the ball towards Toney, who challenges well in the air and gets away a left-foot snapshot from an angle. It flies over, but that’s a strong first six seconds from the visitors.

The teams are out and game faces are on. As are gloves. Whatever happened to the snood, eh?

@hankbobbym tweets in: “Managerial LinkedIn top dog has to be Brendan Rodgers and his Brentian nonsense. ‘One of my strengths is I learn, and I like to learn from all sorts of people in all walks of life.’”

A good point well made. Rodgers is a terrific coach but he doesn’t half love a bit of management-speak. My own favourite of his is “You can live without water for many days, but you can’t live for a second without hope”, but it’s a matter of personal taste.

And here’s our man at Elland Road, Will Unwin:

It is cold and Leeds have not won in the Premier League since early November but Elland Road is packed with fans hoping this is the day the team clicks. Jesse Marsch says he can see an improvement each week and a morale-boosting FA Cup win over Cardiff means there is reason to be hopeful but Brentford have not lost in seven and know how to open up defences, especially one as porous as Leeds

“Brentford fan here,” writes Alex Ross. “Despite recent form, I’m Gnonto confident of a result. Hopefully we can Schade it, though.” Oh dear.

“Really looking forward to this one,” writes Shaun Tooze. “On paper it looks like an end-to-end headcase of a game. Love the spirit and craziness of Leeds, and Brentford have really impressed this season, with some very big names getting turned over. I’m expecting a ding-dong classic. So, 0-0 then eh.”

On that’s note, who’s the most LinkedIn manager? Eddie Howe and Graham Potter stand out most obviously to me – both painfully earnest and not shy of a bit of meaningless management-speak. Marco Silva too has a strong whiff of LinkedIn. Any more for any more?

Some pre-match reading: Louise Taylor on Leeds’ abundance of attacking options … and their manager’s arrival on LinkedIn:

Marsch tells Sky Sports that his side needs to “find ways to not give up goals”. Quite right.

So Jesse Marsch gives Max Wober his first start at the heart of Leeds’ beleaguered defence and rewards youngster Wilfried Gnonto for his classy brace against Cardiff by keeping him in the side, up top with Rodrigo. It means there’s plenty of firepower on the home bench, in the form of Patrick Bamford, Georginio Rutter and Luis Sinisterra. Thomas Frank brings in Rico Henry and Mads Roerslev, who will likely man the flanks either side of a back three.

Team news ahoy

Preamble