The moment we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived, with the release of the fixtures for next season. Now we can all start to plan our lives for the nine months from late August through to the end of May.

I believe that the club asked for an away fixture first to give us a little bit more time to tidy up after the stadium improvement work over the summer, and this has been granted. Brentford will be the first team to visit Elland Road, on the August bank holiday weekend.

There doesn't seem to be anything particularly daunting about the opposition we have to face in the first five games, but we need to get a few points on the board before things get a bit tougher on October 10th, after an extended international break. That day we go to Arsenal, the only team who really took us apart in the season just finished.

And then on the 17th we have the game that most of our fans were looking out for, at home to our dear friends from the wrong side of the Pennines. December also has a few difficult away trips, including a Boxing Day visit to Aston Villa. Which is a bit of a trek during the festive season, but not as far as it could have been.

We bring in the new year at home to Everton on January, and the early spring will be another spell when we need to pick up a few more points ahead of a difficult finish. The end of April sees Liverpool coming to Elland Road, and we will have to hope that Mayday will bring distress to Ipswich Town in deepest Suffolk.

In the final month we have the return fixtures against Arsenal and Man United, before a trip to Selhurst Park on the final day of the season. Hopefully that will be a nice relaxing occasion, with Leeds in a safe mid-table position and having nothing to worry about.

They have been kind to travelling fans, with only five games scheduled for midweek dates, and none involving excessive distances, either home or away. For some reason this includes home and away fixtures against both Man City and Hull, with the other being our trip to Everton’s shiny new stadium.

For contractual reasons we are not allowed to publish the full fixture list, but you can find it here on the club’s official website..

Sadly, the most important sentence will be the one right at the bottom, which warns that “Fixtures are subject to change.” Who knows when these games will actually take place once the TV Companies and the police have got their talons into the fixture list.

Reuters