Leeds United head coach Garry Monk thinks the Whites are too big and too good a club to be in the Championship.
The Yorkshire giants have been out of the top flight picture since being relegated from the Premier League at the end of the 2003/04 campaign; they even dropped down to the third tier before recovering to regain their Championship status.
After years of underachieving, Leeds are putting in a serious promotion push under Monk, who took charge of the club last summer.
The Elland Road outfit presently find themselves fourth in the standings with 69 points from 38 games, just nine points adrift of leaders Newcastle United.
And Monk, who insisted that Leeds deserve to be in the Premier League, however, explained that there is still a long way to go to make that happen as he went on to reflect on the expectation levels surrounding the club.
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“I knew it would be a big task and it still is a mammoth task”, he said on LUTV, when asked about the expectations surrounding Leeds when he took charge of the club.
“There’s a long, long way to go for this club to get back where it needs to go.
“But our ambitions are very clear and quite rightly the fans have expectations.
“This club in my eyes deserve to be in the Premier League.
“It’s too big, it’s too good, the structure is too good to be in the Championship, it’s as simple as that.
“But that doesn’t give you a right to be there in the Premier League, you have to earn it.
“I think this season we’ve tried to show it from day one to the players, to the club, that it is to be earned and I think you can see that in the team.”
Leeds, who headed into the international break on the back of an impressive 2-0 win over second-placed Brighton & Hove Albion, will next face Reading on 1st April.
