By David Roberts

Neil Harris believes his Cardiff City side can derail Championship leaders Leeds United’s promotion hopes when the two sides clash in the Welsh capital on Sunday.

After seeing his side draw two matches against arch-rivals Swansea City, 0-0 and 1-1, in a final, friendly warm-up for the Championship re-start, Harris is looking for a big opening to the nine match run-in to the play-offs.

Leeds may be a point clear at the top of the table, but the Bluebirds are only two points off the play-off places and fancy their chances of reaching the top six.

“There are probably 11 teams who think they’ve got a chance of making the play-offs and we want to force our way in there,” said Harris

“The league table doesn’t lie and it is going to be a tough game against Leeds. They have been the best team, most consistent and the fittest team this season.

“Games could be won or lost on mistakes, or by limiting errors. There will be rustiness and the players will have to get used to the dry pitches.

“I expect lots of mistakes and plenty of goals. If you look at some of the footage that has been put on line from recent friendly games, we saw a lot of goals from people treading on the ball, from short passes and from people cutting out passes.

“It hasn’t been about great play leading up to a goal, it has been about the mistake. The heat could also become a factor over the next few weeks if the temperature gets up to the eighties or nineties – we’ve not used to playing competitive matches in June and July.”

Lee Tomlin and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing both got minutes in the games last weekend and during the midweek friendly against Cheltenham Town to give Harris an even bigger boost ahead of the return.

 

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But Welsh international full back Jazz Richards, whose contract is up on 30 June along with striker Danny Ward, is unlikely to feature this weekend because of a nagging calf injury.

The other valuable lesson Harris and his players learned from the behind-closed-doors game against play-off rivals Swansea was what it is going to be like over the next nine games without any crowds in the ground.

“The whole experience was quite surreal, turning up just an hour before kick-off, parking the car, walking out after limited time in the changing room,” he added.

“You hear everything in the ground and I’ve told my players that I don’t want my voice to be the only one in the stadium, the senior players have to take a lead as well. That’s why it was such a great experience for us ahead of the game against Leeds.

“I would have liked to have 25,000 Cardiff fans cheering us on next weekend, but it will be the same for both teams. We are really looking forward to it.

“The tempo of the games won’t be the same as we had in the matches back in March, partly because of the break we’ve had, but also because of the lack of atmosphere. The intensity to press might not be there to begin with.

“We’ve seen in Germany that the games started off quite slowly. It took three or four matches to get the tempo back up to what it was.”

More than anything, Harris admitted there was huge excitement surrounding the friendly fixture with the Swans and said his players are now ready to push towards the end of the season.

“It’s a really exciting period. We have made no promises about promotion, but the plan ever since I came in has been to force our way into the play-offs,” he said.

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“To be on the fringes with nine games left to play is really exciting. We’ve got to make the most of it, have a go and we’ve got an opportunity to lay down a marker against Leeds.

“Then we get the chance to take points off the team who are in and around us. There will be a lot of teams saying they fancy their chances and we need to build up a head of steam.

“We know our first two fixtures are as tough as they could be, but we are looking forward to them. We’ve talked about being positive and getting off to a good start.

“We’ve had a long time without football and we are just going to get out there and give it a go. Hopefully, we can get that luck that wasn’t with us for a few months.

“But we need strong performances from the start. We have got as good a chance as anyone else.”