There is a big focus at Elland Road on promotion, there’s no doubt about that, with Leeds United’s eyes firmly set on ending a 15-year exile from the Premier League.  

Leeds sit in a strong position in the Championship’s promotion race, but took a break from league action yesterday afternoon, taking on Queens Park Rangers in the third round of the FA Cup.

As excepted, Marcelo Bielsa made numerous changes to his starting XI against the R’s, with the bulk of Leeds’ under-23s earning an outing at Loftus Road.

There were some strong performances, but Leeds lost 2-1. Despite the obvious disappointment of going out at an early stage of the competition, there were supporters completely understanding of Bielsa’s weakened side, with a huge clash with Derby County on the horizon in the Championship.

Here at FLW, we begin to analyse the afternoon, highlighting THREE things we learnt about Leeds…

We already knew this, but Bielsa naming a weakened side only highlighted that the FA Cup was nothing more than a break for Leeds’ key men.

Pablo Hernandez, Kemar Roofe, Mateusz Klich and Pontus Jansson were amongst those rested against QPR, with that quartet likely to be starting against Derby on Friday.

Promotion is the sole aim for Leeds this season, not the FA Cup.

Pearce was introduced as a half-time substitute at Loftus Road, but failed to finish the game, with Bielsa axing the young left-back in favour of a more attacking change.

It wasn’t the first time that’s happened this season, with Pearce seemingly well down the pecking order at Elland Road.

It’ll be interesting to see if a move materialises for him now this month.

Bielsa has been forced to field a number of under-23s in the first-team this season, and there were two more debuts yesterday.

Kun Temenuzhkov and Clarke Oduor stepped off the bench for debuts, whilst five of the starting XI were from Leeds’ under-23s.

The future looks so bright for Leeds.