STANLEY hope to take advantage of a chaotic summer at Leeds as they cross the Pennines for Tuesday night's Capital One Cup first-round tie.

It’s been an eventful summer for the Championship outfit – even by Leeds’ standards – after Italian Massimo Cellino became their new owner.

Dave Hockaday was appointed manager, Benito Carbone lasted just six weeks in a consultancy role and there’s been a huge turnover of players.

Leeds were then beaten 2-0 at Millwall in their Championship opener on Saturday and although Stanley lost 1-0 to Southend in League 2, captain Luke Joyce believes the Reds can repeat their 2-1 victory at Middlesbrough in last year’s first round.

“It’s a fantastic game for us to look forward to because they’re such a big club,” he said.

“They desperately want to get back in the Premier League but for whatever reason it’s just not happened for them.

“From the outside looking in, it looks like the club’s in turmoil, which is a shame when you think of how well they’ve done in the Premier and the Champions League.

“They’ve had a funny pre-season too. They lost at Mansfield and needed two penalties to draw with Chesterfield. They’ll still expect to beat us but we’ll give it a good go and hopefully we can pull off an upset like at Middlesbrough.”

Stanley manager James Beattie agrees that the time might be right for an upset at Elland Road.

"There's all sorts of characters in the game," said the former England striker. "I know a few of the lads at Leeds and they say it's been, in inverted commas, interesting.

"But they're Leeds United and we're Accrington Stanley, and I can only concentrate on what we've got to do.

"It's a great stadium for the lads to go and play in, and it's a good opportunity for us to try to emulate what we did last season at Middlesbrough."

Keeper Jay Lynch and on-loan Stoke striker James Alabi are available after joining Stanley on the eve of the new season.

However, 22-year-old midfielder Will Hatfield is battling to overcome a hip problem that ruled him out of contention for Saturday's game.

"Will's got a slight knock and had one eye on playing Leeds because he's a Leeds lad and grew up going through the Leeds system," Beattie added.

"It must be so hard for a young lad - I'm sure I was in that position during my playing career - but the right thing to do is to get himself fit so he's not out for six weeks, however hard that might be for him to take."