'Strap in' - Liam Cooper on Leeds United's Premier League mindset, what they'd settle for and how he views Liverpool away

He returns to the top flight this season with the club he supported as a boy, 11 years after a senior league debut as a Hull City youngster.

Cooper’s first taste of Premier League action as a Leeds player comes at the same ground where he first tasted England’s top tier for the Tigers – Anfield. Champions Liverpool welcome the Whites to Anfield on Saturday September 12.

In 2009 Hull were on the wrong end of a 6-1 scoreline against a star-studded Liverpoool team, with a Fernando Torres hat-trick, Ryan Babel double and Steven Gerrard strike doing the damage.

If that chastening experience opened up any wounds they are long since healed, because Cooper welcomes the chance to go up against the elite in the newly-promoted Whites’ season opener and puts faith in Marcelo Bielsa’s thorough match preparation.

“I said to the lads when the fixtures came out that it doesn’t get any better,” said the centre-half, who is away on international duty with Scotland.

“You want to go and test yourselves against the best and the Premier League champions is one way to go about it. We will be prepared like we always are, nothing will come as a shock to us. Obviously they have world class players and there is no better feeling than going out there and testing yourselves against the best and what will be will be.”

Last season Leeds were the team that opposition sides talked about as the litmus test, the best in show.

This season things will be different and as the conversation and expectations around the club change, so too will the players’ mentality.

In the Championship it was all about getting out in front and staying there, while avoiding a slip into a psychological ‘threat’ state – the nagging doubts that the worst would come to pass as it did in 2018/19.

In the Premier League, Leeds are not expected and are not expecting to be out in front. They must maintain a confidence in their style of play and keep faith in the very things that brought them to the dance, but balance it with realism and an acknowledgement that they are no longer top dogs.

Good enough to get there in the first place, Leeds must now prove they can belong beyond the 2020/21 campaign and if they achieve it, even by the grace of a single position in the table, it will be job done – even if personal pride and ambition casts a look further up the table.

“It’s going to be a different mentality this year and we all know that, we’re not stupid, we don’t think we are going to go and win the Premier League,” said Cooper.

“I think every fan being honest would take 17th place, we want to stay in this league.

“Obviously we want to go and finish higher and push maybe for the top 10, but in all honesty we would all take staying in the league and that is what it is all about.

“We are going to lose a few more games than normal, but we will do it our way, we won’t change the way we play.

“I know 100 per cent we won’t change the way we approach games or the intensity we play at, so strap in, it is going to be an unbelievable season and we are back where we belong.”