David O'Leary goes back to the scene of one of the few low points of his successful reign as Leeds United manager tonight.

O'Leary takes his side to Filbert Street to face Leicester in the fourth round of the Worthington Cup with Leeds top of the Premiership and already through to the last 16 of the UEFA Cup and the FA Cup fourth round.

But tonight's match will spark comparisons with last year's tie between the teams at the same stage of the competition, when Leicester won 2-1 after being 1-0 down with 90 minutes having already elapsed.

Leicester went on to reach Wembley, where they lost to Tottenham to a stoppage-time goal in the final, but O'Leary refuses to harbour a grudge over that setback, which came less than a month after he took over as United manager.

He said: "We've nothing to avenge because we've already gone back to Leicester and won since then to purge the memory.

"Conceding the two late goals that beat us at Leicester last season was one of the lows of last season. We had dominated the game and we were in the lead with only a couple of minutes left."

Meanwhile, O'Leary is dreading the prospect of putting his young side through another two hours of football. United's hectic schedule of matches, with two games a week commonplace, is showing no signs of ending.

Two tiring trips to Moscow and another to Sofia, together with a regular diet of domestic matches every weekend, have taken their toll on the Premiership table-toppers.

O'Leary said his team were weary after Sunday's defeat of Port Vale in the FA Cup and a visit to face Martin O'Neill's hard-working Leicester is possibly the last thing he would have wanted to subject his players to.

But the stakes are high, with a place in the quarter-finals of the Worthington Cup and a tie at home to Fulham the prize for the victors.

O'Leary said: "I just hope we can win it in the 90 minutes. The last thing we need is extra time.

"The lads were very tired after the FA Cup tie against Port Vale. We've had so much football and I disagreed with the FA Cup third round being played in December."

David Batty could miss tonight's match as he struggles to recover from an Achilles problem. If the midfielder does return, it could be at the expense of Stephen McPhail or Eirik Bakke, who scored twice for Leeds in their 2-0 win over Vale. They are likely to be without David Hopkin for another month after a groin operation.

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