COMMENT By Danny Wright

Thomas Christiansen has found himself in the middle of his first crisis as Leeds United manager as cries for him to be sacked reached a new high after the loss to Brentford on Saturday.

Since September, the Yorkshire giants have plummeted from top of the Championship standings to 10th in the table, with the idea of promotion back to the Premier League looking more like a pipe dream than any kind of achievable target.

Leeds are on a slippy slope and changes must be made if Christiansen wants to save his side's season - and to most importantly, save his job.

Many of the players that were bought in the summer have under-performed while some of the stars of last season have also failed to exercise the form they were in while Garry Monk was at Elland Road.

Andrea Radrizzani moved to calm the situation last week, suggesting that no rash decision will be made in terms of sacking Christiansen at what is still an early stage of the season.

But if the Dane wants to keep his job there are things that he must do to break Leeds out of this spell of form and here, Football Insider looks at three senior players who he must axe from his starting line-up in the upcoming fixtures.

Click '2' below to see the first player who must be dropped immediately

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Pierre-Michel Lasogga

Something just isn't right with Lasogga at the moment. He's not scoring goals and he's not using that physicality to play other attackers into the game.

Leeds are limp in attack and the German loanee must be the source of the problem.

Christiansen and Victor Orta did a poor job of replacing Chris Wood in the summer, they had around £15million to spend but decided to bring in unproven youngsters and a Hamburg outcast on loan.

Caleb Ekuban is stepping up his comeback from injury and is worth taking a risk on once he returns but Christiansen must start playing Kemar Roofe up front, who looked twice the player of Lasogga when he came off the bench at Brentford.

Click '3' below to see another summer signing who is a calimity

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Andy Lonergan

Lonergan had an absolute nightmare at Brentford, with his first-half mistake proving to be the catalyst for the Bees to go on and win the game.

Felix Wiedwald hasn't been that great this season but who was the goalkeeper who kept six clean sheets in a row at the start of the campaign? It was the man who Christiansen bought in the summer to be his No 1 choice.

The fact that he axed Wiedwald was a sign of weakness from the manager, it reeked of Christiansen admitting that he was wrong.

Right now though, the German shot-stopper right looks a better option than mistake-prone Longeran.

Click '4' below to see the third player who fans are demanding that Christiansen drops

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Luke Ayling

Ayling has gone from hero to zero since signing his new contract and that is massively worrying sign.

The 26-year-old's form has severely dipped in recent weeks and it's pretty clear that he needs dropping from the side straight away.

There is a lot of competition at right-back and Vurnon Anita must be scratching his head as to why he hasn't been allowed back into the side yet despite him playing a pivotal role in that six-game run without conceding a goal.

Gaetano Berardi is also there as another option, but with no one decent to play left-back, the one-time Switzerland international may have to stick there for now.

Either way, Ayling must be axed from the side with Anita and Berardi as the two full-backs.

In other Leeds United news, fans destroyed this first-team mainstay for his performance at Brentford.

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