The 2026/27 League One season opens at Meadow Lane on 15 August 2026 with Notts County hosting Leicester City, kick off at 12:30 BST. Notts are back in this division for the first time in eleven years after their 3-0 play off final win over Salford City in May, while Leicester have now dropped two divisions in two years, making this one of the more loaded Matchweek 1 fixtures in recent League One memory.
Paterson and Russell Martin have never met as managers, meaning no prior history to draw on. Paterson guided Notts to promotion in his first full season through counter attacking football, while Martin, appointed on a three year deal in June 2026 after stints at MK Dons, Swansea, Southampton and Rangers, favours a more possession based approach and Saturday is the first time those two instincts will be tested against each other in a competitive setting.
Neither side comes into this with many competitive minutes logged. Notts drew 1-1 at Burnley in the Carabao Cup on 8 August, their first outing since the 3-0 play off final over Salford in May, whereas Leicester beat Northampton 1-0 in the same round and lost 1-0 to Genoa in a pre season friendly on 1 August. Neither squad is exactly humming with sharpness, which makes this opener one neither side can fully predict.
Notts have no significant injury concerns coming in but Leicester are less fortunate, with Ben Nelson out for most of the season after rupturing his ACL in pre season, which means Martin begins the campaign having to reorganise a defensive unit that has not yet played a competitive minute together. The Foxes' EFL registered squad otherwise includes goalkeepers Jakub Stolarczyk, Franco Ravizzoli and Alex McCarthy, defenders Victor Kristiansen, Luke Thomas, Harry Souttar, Wout Faes, Caleb Okoli and Jamaal Lascelles, midfielders Hamza Choudhury, Oliver Skipp, Harry Winks, Joe Aribo and Jordan James, and forwards Stephy Mavididi, Patson Daka, Bobby De Cordova-Reid, Admir Bristric, Liam Cullen and Jordan Ayew.
Paterson's side will sit compact and look to hurt Leicester on the break and from set pieces, an approach that won them promotion. Martin's Leicester will try to pass their way through the low block, with Skipp and Winks central to circulating the ball and getting Mavididi and Daka into positions to run at a retreating defence. Kristiansen and Thomas offer options in wide areas but they will need to find a way past a Notts defensive unit well drilled in sitting deep against possession sides.
Leicester's overall record against Notts stands at 21 wins from 47 meetings, though competitive fixtures between the clubs have been rare over the past decade given how far apart they have been in the football pyramid. The most recent meetings were a pair of 2022 friendlies, producing a 1-1 draw and a 4-0 win for Leicester.
Set pieces are likely to be Notts' clearest route to goal and Leicester will need to defend them without Nelson, which is a concrete problem from the first corner. Meadow Lane will be loud for a fixture of this size and that crowd could compound the difficulty Leicester face in a first competitive outing under Martin, where communication, positioning and rhythm are all being established in real time.
The prediction is 0-0 and the reasoning is fairly straightforward: Martin's possession based system takes time to bed in and this is Matchweek 1 with a defence that has never played together competitively. A Notts side that held Burnley in the Carabao Cup will not be easy to break down, Leicester have not yet played a full 90 minutes as a unit under Martin and if Daka and Mavididi are not yet fully sharp, the goals may not come.
Ryan Baldi
Football Writer
Ryan Baldi is a professional football writer with years of experience and has been featured by respected outlets such as the BBC, The Guardian, Sky Sports, DAZN, FourFourTwo, ESPN, Yahoo Sport and Football365. He has also written several books including Arsène Who?.
