Saturday's trip to Fulham officially kicks off the festive period for Leeds United and, with so many games in such a short period of time, it can have a huge effect on the league table.
The Leeds squad is not underestimating the importance of this critical time of year.
Speaking at the Mission Christmas Cash for Kids event on Wednesday morning, Liam Cooper shared his thoughts on the season so far and how he is feeling about the next couple of weeks.
"We all know the festive period is massive," he said.
"Obviously we've got that 10 point gap to third but it's nothing, we've been here before and we all know how that ended up last year so we've just got to keep doing what we do and keep working hard.
"What's going on behind us is out of our control but we're in control of our own destiny and we'll look to keep improving and keep picking up the wins and keep working hard."
The end of the Fulham game will mark the halfway point of the fixture list and assessing the first half of the season, Cooper said: "In all honesty I still think we've got gears to go through and we've still got a lot of improvement to do as a team and as a squad and we strive every day, we come in every day and work hard, we get demanded to by everybody and we pull each other through and that's the way it's got to be.
"We're a great group and we're a hard working group and we just want to be successful."
As for what that success might look like, Cooper is not getting carried away with thoughts of promotion at this stage.
He said: "To be honest I don't even want to think about that.
"The next game's the biggest, we go to Fulham on Saturday hungry for another three points and that's the way it is. I don't want to talk about what it'll mean to me and stuff like that - we've got a job in hand Saturday and we'll go to the next one but the most important game of the season at the minute is the next one and that's what we're looking to."
Cooper is hopeful of being back in the after missing the previous two games with a slight injury.
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