Leeds United are currently nine points behind Newcastle United in the Championship standings.
Garry Monk has admitted to BBC West Yorkshire Sport that Leeds United are still a long way behind Newcastle United.
Newcastle went into the campaign as favourites to win the Championship, and they have lived up to that billing.
The Magpies currently lead the way in the second tier, but it is no totally out of the question that Leeds could catch Rafael Benitez’s side.
The Whites are currently in fourth place in the Championship table, and have an outside chance of claiming one of the two automatic promotion spots.
However, Monk insists that Newcastle went into the season with far higher expectations than Leeds.
Monk felt that everything was in place at Newcastle to achieve promotion, and he admits Leeds are still some way off of achieving that sort of set up.
“I always knew this was a huge club, but there’s a lot of huge clubs in this league,” Monk explained.
“It should be the aim of this club one day to have an objective where they can say ‘right bang’, the aim is to get promoted this season right at the start, like Brighton and Newcastle.
“But as a club we still have a long, long way to go to reach that point where we can say that’s the objective right from the very start.”
Leeds are currently nine points behind Newcastle, with eight games remaining in the league season.
The Whites are next in action at the weekend, when they take on promotion rivals Reading at the Madejski Stadium.
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