FIXTURE LIST MOAN!

Everyone else glued to the internet or TV at 10am on Wednesday? Yeah me too!

At any other time of the year the release of fixtures wouldn’t be that exciting, but given we are missing our football fix – the new season is still eight weeks away – the release of the new season’s fixtures is a chance to get excited about the new campaign, plan those away days and generally have a whinge about how our fixtures are harder than the others.

And this year I think we have a case.

A very tough one first up, Everton away. They have had a couple of great seasons under Moyes but I think they have been undone by their small squad towards the end of the season. However first up they will be fresh and ready to go. If it was at the Emirates I would have been confident, we have a great record against them there, but Goodison is a tough place to go – we needed a bit of RVP magic to bail us out last time.

It doesn’t get any easier, the Champions League qualifiers are next up sandwiched between a home game against Pompey before trips to Man United and then Man City, not the best of starts thank you fixture computer.

However it gets worse towards the end of January. We travel to Aston Villa, who nearly upset the Premier League odds by pushing us all the way for 4th last season, on Wednesday January 27, before hosting Manchester United on January 30. Then a week later we go across to Chelsea on February 6. To cap it all off Liverpool come to the Emirates four days after the Chelsea game.

I know there are a lot of complexities involving the selection of the fixtures but come on, that run of fixtures seems ridiculously unbalanced, especially considering there may be FA Cup, Carling Cup and Champions League games piled up on that.

I suppose the only consolation is that the run-in isn’t too bad with Wigan, Manchester City, Blackburn and Fulham. However if it is anything like last season it could be all over by then!

Article written by Tom Mallows.