Rs will open new Sky Bet Championship season away to Preston North End on August 4

Queens Park Rangers manager Steve McClaren says the first 10 games of next season will help shape expectations for what the west Londoners can achieve in the Sky Bet Championship.

The fixtures for the new campaign were revealed on Thursday morning, with McClaren taking his charges to Preston North End for their opening game on August 4.

The former England boss will hope to get off to a good start with his new club, with their first home game of the season against Sheffield United on August 11.

With McClaren stating his belief that the opening weeks of the season will help him understand what QPR are capable of, he is sure to have studied it in depth.

But the 57-year-old revealed there were other fixtures he was keenly looking out for when the fixtures were revealed

“Obviously I always look for the games against (my former clubs) Derby County, Middlesbrough and the club where I played, Hull City,” he told the club website.

“They’re always the feature ones for me, but I also look for the big games against the likes of West Bromwich Albion, Stoke City, Aston Villa, Leeds United, Middlesbrough, Derby – the teams that will be in the top six.

“I always look for when you play those teams and how those games are chunked around different things.

“Everything is about Preston and the first game. It’s about getting back into pre-season and I can’t wait for Monday when the players come back just to see the mentality and how they are coming back.

“The next deadline will then be the first game of the season when the transfer window will close and we should have our squad.

“I know you can make loans after that, but we want to get our squad together very quickly, so that’s the next landmark and then I always say after 10 games, let’s see where we are and that’s a gauge of roughly where we’re going to end up.”