Sheep Preview!
Since 1989/90 we have a pretty amazing record on opening day including some encounters with the Sheep!
The fact is, we have not lost since that crazy day at St James Park in 1989 when surrendering a 2-1 lead at half-time, we lost 5-2 away at Newcastle with a certain Mickey Quinn grabbing four of the Geordies goals.
Even in the recent dark League One days, we have got off to winning start, last season's victims were Exeter, the year before it was Scunthorpe away and our first taste of Third tier football begin with a 2-1 last gasp win at Tranmere.
Ironically our first fixture of our last three Championship campaigns (04/05) saw us face Derby, a Frazer Richardson goal sunk the Rams as we adjusted to life outside of the Premiership.
Prior to that, August 7th 1999 saw Leeds open against Derby in the Premiership at ER. A capacity 40,000 crowd saw Leeds minus a certain JF Hasselbaink struggle to break down the Midlanders with Southampton's Ogil Estenstaad the hot favourite to replace "fat arse"! As it happened, Michael Bridges netted a hat-trick in our next fixture at Southampton and it was a case of Jimmy Who?
Do you remember the 1996/97 curtain raiser? a 3-3 draw at the Baseball Ground, frightening to think that fourteen years have since past, Lee Bowyer then Britain's most expensive teenager scored on his debut that day and Sgt Wilko was still in charge?
Now it's Simon Grayson's team and we wait and see which of his new signings feature, the smart-money is on Sanchez Watt starting. Leeds have problems in attack with injuries to Billy Paynter (shin), Robert Snodgrass (knee) and suspensions for Davide Somma and Max Gradel my money is on the on-loan Arsena;l kid to provide support and ammo to Luciano Becchio.
Defender Paul Connelly, who according to a Derby watching friend was quite popular with the Rams fans during the early stages of his career will be chomping at the bit to start but Grayson has plenty of options in this area and will likely to pick from Connelly, fellow new signings Neil Collins and Alex Bruce or stalwart Richard Naylor.
Derby travel north backed by a good turnout despite the game being televised live on BBC2. Nigel Clough has his own absentee list, their player of the year Shaun Barker is out (knee) as is Stephen Pearson and Steve Davies with similar complaints, Davies is not expected back until the new year like Miles Addison who is sidelined with a foot-injury. However the Rams will be keen and eager to catch a glimpse of their own new-signings, who include John Brayford, Gareth Roberts and Tomasz Cywka.
Due to our late kick-off, Leeds will kick-off bottom of the Championship! The only way is up! Personally I am not convinced we are ready for a Premiership push and would be more than happy with a solid, mid-table finish. A good start as always is essential and I see no reason why we cannot get at least a result or even a win against this lot!
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