{"id":665442,"date":"2026-02-21T05:00:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T10:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=665442"},"modified":"2026-02-20T05:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T10:48:10","slug":"leeds-team-news-predicted-lineup-aston-villa-february","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/02\/21\/leeds-team-news-predicted-lineup-aston-villa-february\/","title":{"rendered":"Leeds Team News and Predicted Lineup vs Aston Villa for February 21"},"content":{"rendered":"

With fifth-round qualification secured in the FA Cup, Leeds United\u2019s attention now turns back to the Premier League, where they travel to title contenders Aston Villa. The Whites currently sit in 15th place on 30 points, and have lost only one of their last five league games, meaning that top-flight survival is starting to look more and more likely. Here is our Leeds predicted lineup and the latest team news from the manager.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leeds United Team News & Predicted Lineup vs Title Contenders Aston Villa\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n

How Leeds Have Lined Up Recently<\/b><\/h3>\n

Daniel Farke named a much-changed side as his team required a penalty shootout to progress past Birmingham City in the FA Cup, with perhaps the most notable change coming in goal. Lucas Perri, who has been resigned to the bench in recent weeks, was given an opportunity against Chris Davies\u2019 side, and he certainly made the most of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Brazilian saved Tommy Doyle\u2019s crucial penalty, allowing his side to win the shootout 4-2, and was awarded Player of the Match<\/a> for his heroics. This has given the Leeds boss a real selection headache ahead of the Villa game, with Karl Darlow now likely to come under increased pressure if he does get the nod over Perri.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0<\/strong>Virgil Van Dijk Backs Teammate as Future Leader of Liverpool<\/a><\/p>\n

In front of him, Leeds opted for a back-three of James Justin, Jaka Bijol, and Sebastiaan Bornauw, with Joe Rodon rested and Pascal Struijk still recovering from a knock. Despite only joining the club in the summer, Justin was handed the captain\u2019s armband against City, reflecting the 27-year-old\u2019s growing influence in West Yorkshire.<\/span><\/p>\n

At left wing-back, there was no rest offered to Gabriel Gudmundsson, who played the full 120 minutes in typical breathless fashion. On the opposite side, Willy Gnonto operated in the unfamiliar position of right wing-back, with the 22-year-old currently finding regular minutes in his preferred attacking position hard to come by.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In central midfield, Farke handed starts to Ao Tanaka and Sean Longstaff, who have both largely had backup roles this season due to the form of Ethan Ampadu and Ilia Gruev.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Further forward, January loan signing Facundo Buonanotte<\/a> was handed his first start for the Whites, but found himself taken off at half time after a rather quiet performance alongside Noah Okafor in the number 10 position. The 21-year-old has so far failed to nail down a place in the starting lineup, and looks rusty after barely featuring for Chelsea in the first half of the season.<\/span><\/p>\n

Up front, Lukas Nmecha continues to showcase an impressive eye for goal, notching his seventh goal of the campaign before being replaced by club top scorer Dominic Calvert-Lewin in the 68th minute.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leeds Recent Form and Tactics<\/b><\/h3>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

With Leeds United\u2019s gap over the relegation zone still six points with just 12 league games to go, the long-suffering Elland Road faithful will be daring to dream of Premier League survival, and with good reason. According to Opta\u2019s latest predictions<\/a>, the Whites currently have just a 4% chance of going down this season, which is only around 0.5% higher than \u2018big six\u2019 side Tottenham Hotspur, who are currently in 16th.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What has been most impressive about Farke\u2019s side, particularly since they changed to a 3-5-2 system in late November, is their ability to find the back of the net against any opposition. The 36 goals scored by United<\/a> puts them joint 10th in the league, and is just one goal less than their opponents Aston Villa have managed, despite being 13 places lower in the table.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0<\/strong>Wolves vs Arsenal Team News and Confirmed Lineups<\/a><\/p>\n

Calvert-Lewin and Nmecha have now struck 16 times between them in the competition, an incredible return for two injury-prone strikers who cost a combined \u00a30 in transfer fees in the summer. Just three players have found the net more times than Calvert-Lewin, who has outscored fellow new signings Viktor Gyokeres, Nick Woltemade, and Benjamin Sesko, who cost more than \u00a3200 million between them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leeds United Team News<\/b><\/h2>\n

In his pre-match press conference, Farke stated that Okafor will be out for \u2018between two and four weeks<\/a>\u2019 after picking up a hamstring injury against Birmingham City.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0<\/strong>Wonderkids You Haven\u2019t Heard of Yet: Amari Moses (Everton)<\/a><\/p>\n

On a lighter note, Anton Stach, Struijk, and Daniel James are all back available, giving his squad a much-needed boost as they enter a tricky period.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leeds United Predicted Lineup<\/b><\/h3>\n

GK: Karl Darlow<\/span><\/p>\n

CB: Joe Rodon<\/span><\/p>\n

CB: Jaka Bijol<\/span><\/p>\n

CB: Pascal Struijk<\/span><\/p>\n

CM: Ethan Ampadu<\/span><\/p>\n

CM: Ilia Gruev<\/span><\/p>\n

RWB: James Justin<\/span><\/p>\n

LWB: Gabriel Gudmundsson<\/span><\/p>\n

AM: Jayden Bogle<\/span><\/p>\n

AM: Brenden Aaronson<\/span><\/p>\n

ST: Dominic Calvert-Lewin<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With fifth-round qualification secured in the FA Cup, Leeds United\u2019s attention now turns back to the Premier League, where they travel to title contenders Aston Villa. The Whites currently sit in 15th place on 30 points, and have lost only one of their last five league games, meaning that top-flight survival is starting to look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5510,"featured_media":665448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":true,"sfio_embed_code":"<\/smartframe-embed>","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6443,30,1831],"tags":[9646],"class_list":["post-665442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leeds-united","category-news","category-starting-line-up","tag-leeds-united-predicted-lineup"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5510"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665442"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":665450,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665442\/revisions\/665450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}