Leeds hoping third time's a charm when they face Southampton in Championship play-off final

Leeds midfielder Ilia Gruev believes his side's two defeats to Southampton this season will count for nothing when they meet them again in the Sky Bet Championship play-off final.

Both Leeds and Southampton are bidding to bounce back to the Premier League at the first attempt and will clash again in Sunday’s winner-takes-all match at Wembley.

Russell Martin’s Saints won the first encounter 3-1 at St Mary’s Stadium in September and 2-1 at Elland Road on the final day of the regular season as Leeds missed out on automatic promotion.

When asked if those two losses weighed heavy on Daniel Farke’s side, Gruev said: "No, I wouldn’t say this. Why should it?

"We know what type of team we have, what a great team we are, and we know we have to show this on Sunday.

"If we play at our best I know we can beat Southampton at Wembley and go to the Premier League.

"I wouldn’t say [it is significant] because in the second game against them we played a different kind of football that we wouldn’t normally play."

"It's going to be another different game at Wembley, so it doesn’t bother us much that we lost the games before"

Leeds pressed for an early goal in that game against the Saints as victory, coupled with a defeat for Ipswich, would have secured the Whites a top-two finish.

"We wanted to put pressure on Ipswich by scoring early and played with much more risk than we normally do," Gruev said.

"So it’s going to be another different game at Wembley, so it doesn’t bother us much that we lost the games before."

Leeds sealed their Wembley date with a convincing 4-0 second-leg win against Farke’s former club Norwich in the semi-finals and Gruev paid tribute to his head coach.

The Bulgaria international, whose free-kick opened the scoring against