The fixtures for 2022/3 were announced today, and we will kick off against Wolverhampton Wanderers on August 6th, followed by the long trip to Southampton a week later.

It is of course going to be an unusual season with the need to accommodate the winter World Cup in Qatar, so the fun will start a week earlier and finish a week later than usual. There will then be a break after the weekend of November 12th, with no more Premier League games until Boxing Day. There are a couple more midweek games than last season in order to fit it all in, but we’ve got away quite lightly in terms of having to travel at difficult times.

Two of our three midweek games are at home, and the other is a trip to Leicester, which could have been worse. But of course that’s before Sky and BT get their hands on the fixtures, and it’s inevitable that at some point they will inflict some long-distance away games on Monday nights onto us, because they know we’ll bring them some good viewing figures.

The start to the season looks quite mild on paper, facing only one of last season's top eight before mid-September. Then on the 17th of that month we have the game that we’ve all been waiting for, with another trip to Old Trafford, but hopefully with a better result than last time. The run-up to the world cup break is trickier with trips to Liverpool and Spurs, but a home game with Bournemouth for some light relief.

And it doesn’t get any easier when we resume, with Man City on Boxing Day followed by nouveau riche Newcastle, but there’s always the chance that their players will have played for countries that went a long way in the World Cup, so will be a little bit worn out. We start 2023 with a home game against West Ham on January 2nd.

The final four games are also quite tricky, so hopefully we will have established ourselves in a safe position clear of the bottom three well before then. The final game is the reverse of the last one before the November break, when Tottenham Hotspur come to Elland Road. Please tell me that we won’t have our future riding on the last fixture this time, as I’m not sure my nerves can take it.

For copyright reasons we can’t show all the fixtures here, but you can click here to go to the full fixture list on the official site

Reuters

Leeds United Polls