Stuart Attwell will be hoping history doesn’t repeat itself this weekend. The Warwickshire official will be the man in the middle when Leeds United get their Premier League campaign back underway with the visit of Aston Villa.
If the last time he refereed the fixture is anything to go by, though, Attwell might have his work cut out at Elland Road. The 39-year-old was in charge on that eventful and chaotic afternoon in April 2019 when Dean Smith’s Villa travelled to Yorkshire to face Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds on the penultimate day of the Championship season.
Both Villa and Leeds had play-off spots in the bag before the game but that didn’t prevent either side from pushing to get the upper hand on a promotion rival and in the 72 nd minute of the contest, it all kicked off as Leeds took the lead in controversial circumstances. After seeing Jonathan Kodjia hit the deck through injury, Villa slowed to a halt in the expectation that Leeds would put the ball out of play for the striker to receive treatment.
