Home first and last matches of the season plus Boxing day. Think the computer had a serious malfunction.
Really glad City joined the ESL. Fixtures against Liverpool, Man C and Arsenal straight away. Can't see Barcelona or Juventus on the list yet.
Leicester at home in the third fixture looks like our best chance for point(s) in the first 4 games. Most likely be bottom of the league from the start and I'm an optimist! Watford at home in the 5th match looks like a must win already, just to keep our head above water.
Pretty happy with the fixtures personally. Liverpool, City, Arsenal are all going to be impacted by the Euros/Copa America, with players still coming back, new injuries, etc. They aren't going to have hit their stride. Given we're probably going to be lacking in cohesion early on with new signings to bed in, I'd perhaps rather we find our shape in games where we're expecting 0 points, rather than playing Brentford, Newcastle and Palace in the first 3. Home games either side of Christmas, nice for the fans and hopefully helps rest, recovery and training in that period. Our run-in is also pretty kind. Our final 12 fixtures only include Chelsea (H), Man Utd (A) and Spurs (H) where we'd perhaps write the game off before kick-off. Just glanced at the Brentford fixtures, they look pretty kind. Similar difficulty of run-in, but with no real clustering of top opposition. Watford have a hellish November: Arsenal (A), Utd (H), Leicester (A), Chelsea (H), Man City (H) in a row.
I like your positivity DH, but my concern is the potential difficulty in developing confidence early on that we could build on through the season. If we lose those first 4 games, we'll hardly be buzzing when we face Watford. I just hope you're right about the big boys having a disrupted pre-season. I remember back in the 90s when we went two goals down at Arsenal in the opening game. Instead of advocating damage limitation, Mike Walker told the players to get at them and score some goals. Mark Robins scored a brace and we stunned them 2-4. Something like that again would go down very well. That was the year we led the league most of the season and finally finished 3rd.
Two seasons ago we earned more points in matches against teams near the top of the table than we did against those we were "expected" to compete with. An underdog mentality with "nothing to lose" seemed to suit us, similar to how we tend to play well against top teams in cup competitions while contriving to lose to teams lower down the pyramid.
Indeed -- remember this? Man of the match - Ibrahim Amadou (Norwich City) please log in to view this image Pressed into service in central defence and making his first start in the Premier League, 26-year-old midfielder Amadou helped shackle City's world-class attackers with a composed display. BBC Football, Sat 14th September 2019.
I was there mate I won't be forgetting it anytime soon . He got found out over time that he's not good enough out of position.
I hope he didn't feel too bad about it, After all, some of our players turn out not to be good enough in their true position ........ PS Don't ask me for names
