Next season's fixture list will land in Simon Grayson's lap next week, and masterminding a flying start should be foremost in the mind of Leeds United's manager, according to Nigel Martyn.
English campaigns are marathon programmes and United are due to receive the details of the new League One season on Wednesday morning, but Martyn – the club's former goalkeeper – is certain that Grayson will treat the early weeks of the 2009-10 sched
ule like a sprint.
United's defeat in the play-off semi-finals last month stirred predictable noises from Elland Road marking out automatic promotion as an imperative target next season, but Martyn doubts whether Grayson would set his standards as low as second place.
He expects United's boss to try and follow in the footsteps of Leicester City and attempt to win League One convincingly.
At no stage of the recent term could Leeds claim to have dominated their division, in spite of their pre-season optimism. Leicester held first place by the end of August and never looked back, leaving behind them a United squad who sparkled only in patches.
Revisiting the consistency of August and September in 2007, when Leeds won their first seven league matches, is a target which Martyn hopes Grayson will set his players.
United, for the third year running, are the club under the most penetrating microscope after two seasons in League One, the one team who will lack an acceptable excuse if promotion eludes them again.
In Martyn's opinion, United cannot risk another campaign fought in amongst the pack.
"Leicester were the perfect example of what major clubs need to do in this league," said Martyn. "A bit of a blueprint, if you like.
"When Simon gets hold of the fixtures next week, the first thing he'll say to himself is 'let's start like a house on fire'. Leeds have to do that next season – or accept that they're going to be under huge pressure again.
"So much of the attention this season was fixed on Leeds and it was quite revealing that the opposite was true of Leicester. They got off to a great start and people seemed to accept quite early on that they were going to win the title.
"The ideal scenario for Simon is that, by Christmas, other clubs will be looking at Leeds and saying 'they're out of reach'.
"When he says that automatic promotion is the minimum aim next season, he'll mean it.
"The club would obviously settle for second place – they're at the stage now where they need to get out of League One any way they can – but they won't want to get into a tight battle involving four or five clubs, or to find themselves having to make up ground at crucial periods.
"The last two seasons have warned them about that."
