Although Neil Warnock will use our visit to Cardiff City as part of his on-going preperations for next season, he will also be fielding the strongest team he can from the players available.

The manager said he was quite pleased with the performance at Blackpool on Tuesday and told the official site "When you look at it they are in the Play-Offs, like Cardiff, and without being disrespectful to them, there's nothing to worry you long-term. I think we could have quite easily won the game the other night with a bit more quality in certain areas so I'm optimistic. It's given me a lift."

And he’s right up to a point. All the away performances have been fully committed since he took over, but we need a big a big improvement in our home form before next season. Cardiff will present a similar challenge to the one we faced on Tuesday and the boss said "This is a good chance to have a look at Cardiff and see how far in front they are. We've got to look at the future and it's good for the young lads like Tom Lees to play in an atmosphere like this. It'll stand him in good stead.”

But he isn’t going to make too many changes, as he is mindful of the fact that other clubs will be looking to Leeds to get a result as the battle for play-off places reaches it’s climax. "It's not fair on other teams not to put out strong teams. We want to try and convert the chances and put in a performance”. That said, his choice of line-up will be limited by the usual suspension an injury problems.

With all the sending offs we’ve had in the last few games it’s getting hard to keep up with who is suspended from game to game, but I make that Thompson, Brown and O’Dea will all be out for this one. As we have already announced that we will not be extending O’Dea’s loan spell it’s almost certain that the Irishman has played his last game for the club, and Bruce is likely to replace him tomorrow. And we will also be missing Billy Paynter and Robbie Rogers through achilles and ankle injuries respectively.

Cardiff seem to have been permanent play-off contenders over the last few seasons without ever managing to clear the final hurdle and get themselves into the Premier League, and this year has been no exception. Warnock was full of praise for the way Malky Mackay for picking up the pieces following the departure of David Jones. "He's a good up and coming young manager. I think he's one for the future. When Dave left and a lot of players went with him people thought it would be a disaster, but he's done well. They've got to a cup final as well, so they've done well."

But our old Stephen McPhail has admitted to the BBC that their squad are feeling tense with yet another chance of promotion coming up. "Everyone's nervous, we can feel it in the crowd. This time of year points are the most important thing, not performances." McPhail made 78 appearances for Leeds and said "I started there at 15 and had nine maybe ten years. It was a great time up there but I'm at Cardiff now and I've loved every minute of it. I'll be doing my best to beat them on Saturday."

Cardiff will have one or two injury problems of their own as they face the run-in, as midfielder Craig Conway will misses the rest of the season with ankle ligament damage, striker Rudy Gestede is struggling with a hip problem and midfielder Don Cowie is carrying a minor knock.

A win for Cardiff would guarantee that they finish the season in the top six, but quite fancy Leeds to get a point from this game, which could leave the bluebirds waiting until the final game to secure their place in the play-offs.

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