Leeds United play Everton at Elland Road in the Premier League’s first Monday Night Football game of the 2025/26 season.
Opening day against Everton is just over two weeks away, with Leeds United’s opening Premier League games showing a mixed bag in recent seasons.
Leeds’ first XI vs Everton will hopefully take shape in the coming weeks, with more additions still needed before Daniel Farke feels they are ready to attack the division.
There is already a blow in their preparations, with Jaka Bijol missing the Everton game as we first revealed. It means Bijol’s first game will be against Arsenal instead.
Photo by Carl Recine/Getty ImagesDavid Moyes’ major transfer concerns in time for Leeds playing Everton
Leeds fans are fuming over Everton ticket prices but the picture in West Yorkshire is far more positive than it is on Merseyside currently, given the recent comments from David Moyes.
Speaking prior to playing West Ham United in pre-season, Moyes reiterated that Everton were “hoping to have done more business” by now and said “we’re just stalling a little bit in some departments.”
Via The Athletic, he said: “The truth is, we are not getting them over the line at the moment, so that’s a fact. We’re not getting a lot of the deals done that we were hoping to do.
“We’re continually reassessing and moving on if things are not coming to fruition. We want to challenge ourselves to get good players if that is possible, and we’re trying to do that but we’re finding it quite difficult.”
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“The fact of the matter is we’ve got to rebuild trust in people who should come to Everton and show that the club is going in the right direction. Let’s hope we can pull it together for them (the supporters) and get them a team to be proud of by the start of the season.”
“I’m telling them straight at the moment. We are having a bit of a struggle getting ones in quickly enough, but we’re trying to do players who could give us a chance of challenging to be one of those teams in Europe.
“We know that time’s running out. We’ve probably had five weeks, six weeks certainly, probably more since the end of last season. We got to start getting moving on because it will not be long till the window starts to get a bit closer to the end.”
“Hopefully things will start to fall into place. We are just beginning (to think) ‘my goodness we are just not getting enough over the line.’
“We are actively working on it. It’s not like we are a club waiting to sell a player in order to bring ones in.”
Currently, Everton have signed four new players. However, the Toffees only have a first-team squad size of 21 and only seven of those are aged between 23 and 30 and in the ‘peak-age’ bracket.
Perhaps most damning of all comes via Toffee Web post-match, he added: “We’re not ready to perform well enough in this tournament. We’re not ready to start the Premier League season.” Moyes claims they need “at least five or six more players.”
Photo by Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty ImagesLeeds United’s hardest run of the season after Everton
Leeds’ start to the campaign is far from their hardest run of the campaign, even if Everton should not be underestimated. Leeds have difficult games starting in November.
Following West Ham United at Elland Road at the end of October, Leeds then face Brighton away and it doesn’t get much easier after that for some time.
- Brighton & Hove Albion (A) – Saturday 1st November
- Nottingham Forest (A) – Saturday 8th November
- Aston Villa (H) – Saturday 22nd November
- Manchester City (A) – Saturday 29th November
- Chelsea (H) – Wednesday 3rd December
- Liverpool (H) – Saturday 6th December
It eases off after Liverpool at Elland Road, with Brentford, Crystal Palace, and Sunderland in the next three. However, Leeds have a run of Man City, Chelsea, and Liverpool in one week at the end of November and start of December.