After a pre-season which was marred only by last week's unsavoury events, concerning a certain wantaway Dutchman, Leeds will be looking forward with optimism to the forthcoming campaign - following an extremely successful pre-season, which has seen the team in excellent goalscoring form.

Bearing this in mind, a home match against Derby County would, at least on paper, appear to be an ideal fixture for openers. Over the last few seasons, we have become something of a bogey-team to the Rams. 1997/98 featured two memorable matches: that amazing comeback at Elland Road, from 3-0 down to a 4-3 victory, with Lee Bowyer's goal coming in the final minute - followed by a 5-0 trouncing at Pride Park. Last season, the teams drew 2-2 at Derby, but in the return match we again knocked in four goals, despite going 1-0 down early on. In total, we've scored 15 goals against them in the last four matches...so no doubt it'll be a 0-0 draw tomorrow!

In terms of personnel who might be on show tomorrow, Leeds look certain to play Bridges, Smith and Kewell up front. Elsewhere, though, places are very much up for grabs. Mills appears likely to start at right back but Kelly's pre-season form has been outstanding, so expect him to be pushing for a return sooner rather than later. Harte is a certainty at left back but Duberry may well start on the bench, should O'Leary decide to start the game with a flat back four. Bowyer and Batty are almost certain to be on from the start but Hopkin's inclusion will depend on the manager's defensive strategy.

For Derby, Paulo Wanchope has moved on to pastures new, whilst Stimac and Bohinen miss the game. New signing, Seth Johnson, looks set to make his Premiership debut.

It was just like days of old: a sell out crowd of over 40,000, expectations sky high....only to be followed by a dour 0-0 draw, as Jim Smith's Derby team achieved their goal of escaping with a point, from a ground where they haven't enjoyed the best of fortunes over recent seasons.

The first half started brightly enough. An electric atmosphere greeted the two teams as the entered the arena, with United fans clearly hoping the Whites could build upon their highly promising pre-season form. United were quickest out of the blocks, managing to inject real pace into everything they attempted. Still, it soon became obvious that we were going to miss the physical strength of Jimmy up front - and so this proved to be the case all afternoon.

Despite all United's excellent possession over the first forty five minutes, however, the chances were few and far between. The tone was set within the first ten minutes when Kewell broke down the left hand side. He sent a dangerous looking cross into the box, only for new signing Bridges to slice the ball sideways into the path of Lee Bowyer. However, Bowyer rushed his opportunity and the ball flew high over the bar.

Leeds' best two other opportunities of the first period came from their two full backs, Harte and new boy, Mills. The first of these came, halfway through the half, when Harte hit a rasping 20 yard effort which Poom just about managed to hold onto. Then, as United pushed forward, Tony Dorigo chopped down Bowyer on the edge of the box. The former Leeds player was cautioned and, from the resultant free kick, the ball fell to Mills. His drive was hard and low. However, although it managed to get underneath the Derby keeper, it went agonisingly wide.

Despite the 0-0 scoreline, however, the first half showed plenty of promise. As always, Leeds tried to play football wherever possible and Derby failed to register any kind of threat. The team were warmly applauded off the pitch at half time.

The second half, though, was a different matter. Leeds continued to try to knock the ball around but, as happened several times last season, when our opponents pushed everybody back deep, we began to get more and more frustrated. Forced errors started to creep into our play and the crowd grew more and more restless.

Leeds' attacking options weren't exactly helped when, within the opening ten minutes of the second period, Smith had to be taken off. Although he wasn't having one of his most effective games (He seemed to be only 75% fit from the start!), it meant that Bridges now had to get used to another attacking partner, in Harry Kewell. McPhail came on to try to keep things moving on the left.

Clear cut chances were now at an absolute premium. There were a couple of goal-line scrambles, when the slightly dodgy looking Poom didn't manage to hold onto the ball - but neither team looked like scoring, with all the action taking place within the middle third of the pitch. Even with half of the second period remaining, the game had 0-0 written all over it. Then, with just 15 minutes remaining, one of the Derby defenders decided to play a suicidal back pass to his keeper. Kewell was onto the mistake in a flash and, racing into the box, he found himself one on one against Poom. A simple chip seemed the obvious choice but, inexplicably, Kewell decided to dribble his way round the keeper, who easily gathered the ball. It was somehow typical of Leeds play all afternoon, where over-elaboration seemed to be the order of the day.

That was the last and really the only clear cut opportunity of the half, as United and their supporters became more and more frantic. Somehow, this was typified by a needless scrap near the end, when Bowyer managed to get himself booked, perhaps a little unluckily. Mix into the equation, a poor refereeing display from Graham Barber, who only decided to punish Derby's perpetual time wasting eight minutes from the end - and then add on only two minutes of injury time, and you have the recipe for complete and utter frustration.

The plus points? The defence was rock solid, with Radebe a class apart and Mills enjoying a more than satisfactory debut - and the team continued admirably to play football. Negatives? We missed Jimmy more than anyone would dare admit, Bridges and Smith look an unlikely partnership (even though it is only early days), far too similar and lacking the physical presence to hold the ball up and, yet again, when faced with a defensive minded team, we ran out of ideas over the second half. This will surely need to be rectified sooner rather than later -as teams are going to be coming to Elland Road this season happy to take away a point.

United star man: Lucas Radebe