By Tony Leighton

Handling the pressure of massive expectation will be vital to Leeds United's chances of returning to the Championship at the second attempt, reckons manager Gary McAllister.

The former Scotland midfielder and Coventry City boss, who took over at Elland Road in January following the departure of Dennis Wise, led his team to last season's League 1 Play-Off Final despite Leeds having started with a 15-point deduction.

McAllister's men lost to Doncaster Rovers in the Wembley Final, but without the handicap of a points deduction this term they will be favourites - especially among their own fans - to claim an automatic promotion place.

McAllister, who has made five key close season signings, says: "The players have to adapt to the expectation level that will always be there at Leeds United.

"I hope that the reason people want to come to Leeds is because of that expectation, which will never go away.

"The facts are that if there are two or three weeks where the victories aren't coming, there's a certain pressure.

"But I can only express to players that that's the sort of level (of pressure), the sort of club you want to play for - and at Leeds you get that level every time you play."

As a player at Leeds himself when the club was in the Premiership, McAllister is in a good position to prepare his players - particularly the new boys - for what they should expect from the Elland Road faithful.

And he is confident he can get the best out of them in what he feels will be a tough campaign, favourites or not, as his squad look to erase the memory of May's Play-Off heartache.

McAllister says: "From what I've seen since the first week back in training there doesn't seem to be any hangover, just a look of determination among the players to get it right this time.

"There was a siege mentality used to devastating affect last season and we want to adopt that same mentality.

"We won 27 games, so we can't set our targets any lower than that. We got 91 points less the 15 that were deducted, but we can't rest on the fact we did that last season.

"Teams will want to beat Leeds, that's a fact, so we'll go in there fighting and we want to be in the mix from the early weeks."

McAllister acknowledges that, if Leeds are indeed in the mix from the early weeks, there will be plenty of dangerous teams in there with them.

He says: "The three teams who came down from the Championship, Leicester, Scunthorpe and Colchester, will be strong because they'll have players with Championship experience.

"Carlisle did extremely well in League 1 last season and they'll hope to repeat that, but there's other teams like Huddersfield, who've been spending a few quid, and Oldham, where a couple of old friends of mine - John Sheridan and Tommy Wright - like to get the ball down and pass as we do.

"We'll go into the season knowing we might be seen as favourites, but the players realise that if they mirror the attitude they adopted last season they'll be there or thereabouts."