According to Middlesbrough's Haydyn Hackney, they're still a few gears away from being at their best.

He told BBC Radio Tees that the Riversider's haven't hit top gear yet, despite winning five of their last seven matches in spite of a horrific injury list.

Boro are right back in the promotion hunt with their recent rich vein of form. Friday's 2-0 win at Blackburn leaves them in 5th, in contrast Leeds have just the one win in six and dropped out of the automatics following Saturday's 1-1 draw at Luton.

The hosts won't need any motivation to put one over their near rivals. They also eliminated us from the Carabou Cup this season, although we convincingly beat them 3-1 in December in the league.

Karl Darlow is likely to keep his place in the starting XI as he couldn't be faulted for Luton's goal. Farke may be tempted to rotate Sam Byram or Max Wober for Junior Firpo, the Dominican Republic defender was lacklustre at the weekend and given Izzy Jones scored from where Firpo should have been defending, Farke could be ruthless and could also play Issac Schmidt there, which would be a rariety. Pascal Struijk left Kenilworth Road with an ice pack strapped to his right foot, so if he misses out so either Wober or Ethan Ampadu, both recent injury returnees may step in alongside Joe Rodon.

The extent of Joe Rothwell's calf injury has emerged meaning he could be out for weeks, this is a massive blow as I've been very impressed with the onloan Bournemouth man. So we could even see a rare pairing of Ao Tanaka and Ilia Gruev in central midfield.

Moving further forward, Willie Gnonto had a poor game on Saturday so Brendan Aaronsen may return at 10. Daniel James should keep his place on the right having scored, but the pressure is on Manor Solomon who's form has dipped of late. Like Schmidt, Largie Ramazani has been a peripheral figure this season, whilst praising Schmidt in training Farke was less complementary about the Belgian.

Farke is facing calls to drop Joel Piroe, but his options are Mateo Joseph, poorly at the weekend and largely anonymous all season or former Boro striker Patrick Bamford who's been injured for most of the season.

Boro have a big injury list, including former Leeds favourite Luke Ayling out with an ankle injury for over a month now. Brazilian defender Neto Borgas limped off during the win at Ewood Park, however we should see Jonny Howson in midfield hopefully not rolling back the years too much.

Just under a year ago, Leeds won a seven goal thriller here 4-3. I doubt we've got it in us to make that happen again. We are already relying on other clubs, like Derby and Millwall to do us favours so it's now or never I'm afraid.

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