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Leeds United will host Middlesbrough at Elland Road on Wednesday in the opening round of the 2024-25 EFL Cup campaign. The home side returned to competitive action at the weekend, facing Portsmouth in their Championship opener and playing to an end-to-end 3-3 draw with Brenden Aaronson squandering a great chance to clinch the win for the Whites at the death.
They faced Shrewsbury Town at this stage of the domestic cup last season, picking up a 2-1 comeback win via goals from Joe Gelhardt and Pascal Struijk and will be hopeful of a winning start to things here as well.
Middlesbrough, meanwhile, hosted Swansea City in their league opener last weekend, picking up a narrow but largely deserved 1-0 win over the Swans with Emmanuel Latte Lath scoring the sole goal of the game from the spot midway through the first half.
They opened their League Cup campaign last season with a 3-2 away victory over 10-man Huddersfield Town and will be targeting a win here as well.
Leeds United vs Middlesbrough Head-to-Head and Key Numbers
- Historically, there have been 103 meetings between Leeds and Middlesbrough. The hosts have won 42 of those games while the visitors have won 10 fewer. There have been 29 draws between the two teams.
- The Whites have won their last four games in this fixture and are undefeated in their last six.
- The visitors have not had a clean sheet in their last five games in this fixture.
- Boro are without a win at Elland Road since August 2011.
- Only two of Leeds' 10 league defeats last season came on home turf.
Leeds United vs Middlesbrough Prediction
Leeds are on a run of back-to-back winless outings in competitive action and have won just one of their last six. They have won just one of their last five competitive games at Elland Road and could struggle here.
Middlesbrough ended their pre-season campaign with four wins from their final five games and have begun the new season with a win. They have, however, struggled for results in this fixture of late and could see defeat this week.
Prediction: Leeds United 2-1 Middlesbrough
Leeds United vs Middlesbrough Betting Tips
Tip 1 - Result: Leeds United to win
Tip 2 - Goals - Over/under 2.5 - Over 2.5 goals (Three of the last four matches between the two teams have produced more than 2.5 goals)
Tip 3 - Both teams to score: YES (Both sides have found the back of the net in five of the visitors' last six competitive outings)
