Leeds United will quickly be found out if August excuses are repeated while they avoid 23/24 pitfall

Leeds United’s fixtures can be broken down, roughly, into four quarters with a lot of the toughest and easiest matches, on paper, clubbed together. An analysis of a new fixture list is always riddled with caveats, but based on every team’s finishing position from last season, it’s a challenging start for Daniel Farke’s side.

Seven of the opening 10 matches are against teams who were either relegated or finished in the top half of the second tier last season. Even Portsmouth and Sheffield Wednesday, two of the supposedly easier opponents on paper, will go into the new campaign with confidence after finishing 2023/24 in good form.

Before mid-October, play-off semi-finalists West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City will each host the Whites, while relegated Burnley and Sheffield United will each visit Elland Road too. Throw in visits from Hull City and Coventry City and you see how Farke will need to hit the ground running.

READ MORE: Leeds United 2024-25 fixtures release LIVE as Daniel Farke finds out EFL Championship schedule

It does then mean the opponents, on paper, ease up from late October all the way through to late January. Luton Town will be the only one of last season’s highest six finishers to face Leeds over that period.

The list then swings back to those early-season opponents through another busy February before an appetising run-in, that sees Leeds go to Oxford United on Good Friday before hosting Stoke City on Easter Monday. Plymouth Argyle will host Leeds on the final day in what everyone will hope is a sunny day of celebration on the south coast.

That’s the longest trip of the season, saved until last, and, cup surprises aside, none of the long away trips have been grouped together as they were last season. Of the midweek evening games, the most arduous is Norwich City away on Wednesday, October 2.

Aside from the obvious, they play everyone twice and we will see where we are in May, it will be a stern opening examination for Leeds. They cannot afford to start in as disjointed a fashion as they did last season.

If they come through the opening weeks in a decent position, there is then what looks like a good opportunity to build up a head of steam going into 2025.