There should be another near sell out crowd at Elland Road on Saturday afternoon for our meeting with Sheffield Wednesday. The two clubs could hardly have made more contrasting starts to the 1999-2000 campaign: United on the verge of matching their best ever sequence of wins whilst Wednesday are rooted to the foot of the premiership table.

If Leeds win on Saturday, they will equal a record which has stood since 1931 - that is the last time that a United team put together a run of nine successive victories. On that occasion, it was nine League victories, whilst this time around it has been a combination of Premiership. UEFA Cup and Worthington Cup games.

Wednesday made a nightmare start to the season - not only failing to register a single win in their opening eight matches ( which included a eight goal thumping by relegation rivals Newcastle!) but also getting involved in a long running and acrimonious dispute with star striker Benito Carbone. The last couple of weeks, however, have offered a twinkle of light at the end of a very long dark tunnel. Having thumped Wimbledon in their last Premiership outing, to register their first win of the season, they then walloped Nottingham Forest in midweek. After a drought of goals, they have now scored nine in two games!

What's more, the Carbone situation looks like it might be resolving itself. Having been linked with a move to Villa and Spurs, amongst others, he vowed last week to see out his contract at Hillsborough. However, whether he'll play at Elland Road is anyone's guess.

For Saturday's game, Leeds are definitely without Ian Harte once again, still recovering from a knee op, whilst the injury Lee Bowyer picked up whilst playing for the U21s looks likely to rule him out too. Most likely, then, O'Leary will stick with the team that started against Blackburn in midweek - but will be hoping for a much improved performance against Wednesday.

The Owls are hoping Gilles De Bilde will be back up front, after a bout of Flu, whilst Andy Hinchcliffe continues his comeback after injury.