Leeds United begin their 2026-27 Premier League campaign with a trip to the City Ground to face Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Daniel Farke's side head into the new season looking to build on a 14th-place finish last term, when they ended the campaign three points and two places above Forest in the Premier League table.
Forest, meanwhile, begin a new chapter under Oliver Glasner, with the former Crystal Palace boss taking charge of his first Premier League game for the club at the City Ground.
Ahead of the opening-day encounter, our friends at Opta have picked out a number of statistics and trends involving the two sides, covering recent form, head-to-head records, individual performances and last season's Premier League data.
LEEDS' STRONG OPENING-DAY RECORD
Leeds have lost their opening fixture in just two of their past 18 top-flight seasons.
Across that run, the Whites have won nine and drawn seven of their opening matches, with their only defeats coming against Liverpool in 2020-21 and Man Utd in 2021-22.
PREVIOUS OPENING-DAY MEETING
This will be only the second time Leeds and Nottingham Forest have met in the opening league game of a season.
The previous occasion came in 1991-92, when Howard Wilkinson's side won 1-0 before going on to win the top-flight title that season.
LEEDS WON MOST RECENT MEETING
Leeds recorded a 3-1 victory over Forest at Elland Road when the sides last met in February.
Jayden Bogle and Noah Okafor struck four minutes apart in the first half before Dominic Calvert-Lewin made it 3-0 shortly after the interval. Forest's Lorenzo Lucca scored in the 86th minute.
Leeds also recorded 2.52 expected goals to Forest's 1.33 in that fixture.
LEEDS FINISHED ABOVE FOREST
Daniel Farke's side ended the 2025-26 Premier League campaign in 14th place, two positions above Forest in 16th.
Leeds collected 47 points from their 38 matches, three more than Forest's total of 44.
LEEDS' IMPROVED FORM SINCE DECEMBER
After switching to a back three/five formation from December onwards last season, Leeds collected 36 Premier League points from 25 matches.
Their record during that period was eight wins, 12 draws and five defeats, with only six sides collecting more points.
DIFFICULT TO BEAT AWAY FROM HOME
Despite collecting 15 away points across the campaign, Leeds lost only two of their final 12 Premier League matches on the road last season.
The Whites' record across those 12 games was one win, nine draws and two defeats, while their nine away draws across the entire campaign were the joint-most by any side in Europe's big five leagues, level with Real Betis.
CALVERT-LEWIN'S 14-GOAL SEASON
Dominic Calvert-Lewin was Leeds' leading Premier League scorer last season with 14 goals, a tally which placed him joint seventh among the division's leading scorers.
It was also the striker's second-highest scoring Premier League campaign, behind the 16 goals he registered in 2020-21.
WILSON'S 26/27 CONTRIBUTIONS
New Leeds signing Harry Wilson registered 10 goals and seven assists in the Premier League last season, giving him 17 direct goal involvements.
Only eight players in the competition recorded more, while Wilson's seven assists also placed him among the league's leading providers.
Wilson also outperformed his expected-goals figure by 4.2, with only Antoine Semenyo (+5.9) and Junior Kroupi (+4.7) recording a greater differential.
HISTORY NOT ON FOREST'S SIDE
Oliver Glasner begins his Premier League tenure with Forest against Leeds, and each of the club's previous six permanent managers lost their first match in the competition.
Dave Bassett was the last permanent Forest manager to win his first Premier League game in charge, recording a 1-0 victory away at Tottenham in March 1997.
