Burnley v Leeds United importance has now risen after Sheffield United & Sunderland developments | OneFootball

Monday night pits two of the four automatic promotion front runners against each other after the other two clubs dropped points

Championship games seldom come around with the same enormity that Monday night's clash between Burnley and Leeds United holds, and the pair both received a timely boost in the days before their gargantuan clash.

Being the last of your rivals to play can have its advantages and disadvantages, and if both Sheffield United and Sunderland had won their respective games before this, then there would be a much different feeling to this clash.

They didn't, however, with both dropping surprise points - Sheffield United going down 3-0 at home to Hull, while Sunderland were held to a 2-2 home draw by a Plymouth Argyle side Burnley had beaten 5-0 just a matter of days earlier.

Very few fans of a Burnley or Leeds persuasion will have held out much hope for either or both dropping points, so their rivals' shortcomings will have been a huge boost before this clash.

A game in January won't definitively decide who does/doesn't go up, but it will certainly play a huge part in splitting that top four into two teams.

Burnley have a huge opportunity to move joint-top by beating Leeds United

This season hasn't been plain sailing at times for Burnley, but despite struggling to score goals more often than not this term, a solid defence has meant they've remained firmly in the top-two race throughout.

The Clarets won the reverse fixture 1-0 in September so hold a slight psychological advantage coming into this Turf Moor meeting, where they know a win will see them move level on points with table-topping Leeds.

One huge shortcoming for Burnley this season though has been their home form, as despite not yet losing a single Championship game at Turf Moor, they're still only the 11th-best performing side at home in the division this term.

That owes largely to seven draws from their 13 such games and some conservative Clarets fans may argue they'd be content with a point here which would mean it's 'as you were' in the promotion race with another tough game out of the way.

That's largely because Burnley have the most favourable run in of the top-four, as after Monday they'll have played four of their fellow top-seven sides home and away, while their remaining fixtures against Sheffield United and West Brom are both at home.

However, this game provides a real opportunity to not only leapfrog Sheffield United, but also open up a four-point gap to Sunderland - one which the Black Cats will certainly find tricky to overcome.

Leeds can open up some clear daylight to the chasing pack if they beat Burnley

This game has a much different feel for Leeds, who know that a win here would open up serious daylight to all three of the teams behind them - they could move four clear of Sheffield United, six clear of Burnley and seven clear of Sunderland.

That would be absolutely monumental in their quest to get back to the Premier League and it would be hard to see two of the chasing pack overthrowing that deficit barring another Leeds collapse, which certainly cannot be ruled out.

Even a point for Leeds would keep all three sides at arm's length and wouldn't be a terrible result for them, particularly given their indifferent record of two wins, four draws and two defeats against current top-eight sides.

The shortcomings of their rivals has opened up this huge chance for them, and promotion is now firmly in their own hands as they seek to avoid the lottery of the play-offs - the stage they fell at last season.