Fixture List Announced

By: Martin | June 17th, 2009

So um…apparently the leaked early fixture list I posted a few days ago turned out to not be all that accurate. I did give a disclaimer that it might be, but apologies anyway. At any rate, here’s the real fixture list:

http://www.arsenal.com/fixtures/fixtures-reports

Of course, some of these may be subject to change due to FA Cup dates and/or television decisions.

Now, I’m not one to buy into much “analysis” of the fixture lists. While, unsurprisingly, Liverpool fans have already started to complain about how their fixture list is unfair, the fact is that each team plays every other team twice, once at home and once away. What system could be more fair? If Arsenal or any other team doesn’t succeed this season, it won’t be because of the fixture list.

So I won’t engage in any sort of deep analysis of our schedule here. But I will point out that, unlike last season, when we had to play United, Chelsea, and Liverpool in April and May, this year’s schedule is very front-loaded in terms of tough fixtures. If you look, we play United Home, Chelsea Away, and Liverpool Home all within an 11 day period at the end of January and early February (and should we get out of the Champions League group stages, the first knockout round starts the following week). But after that, our last 12 games are all pretty manageable, if you ask me: Sunderland home, Stoke away, Burnley home, Hull away, West Ham home, Birmingham away, Wolves home, Spurs away, Wigan away, Manchester City home, Blackburn away, Fulham home.

To break that down, in our last 12 games, we do not play a single league game against a club that finished in the top 6 last year. Only 4 out of the 12 games are against teams that finished in the top 10, and of those, only one, the April 10 North London derby game at White Hart Lane, is an away fixture. We play all three promoted teams and Hull City during this stretch. To put it simply, we have a LOT of games we should be expected to win starting in mid-February. If we can get off to a good start, and weather that storm at the end of January and early February and still be within spitting distance of 1st place, I have to say I like our chances of picking up a lot of points in the spring and putting pressure on the other Big 4 teams. It can also work out because if we do make it into the Champions League knockout rounds and/or get deep into the FA Cup, it will give Arsene the option of rotating some players and figuring out his priorities.

Finally, it’s kind of exciting to see the schedule, isn’t it? I was trying to find the words to express how looking at it made me a little giddy, and finally turned the page for me, mentally, from the 2008-2009 season to the 2009-2010 season. And then I realized that Martin Lawrence said it better and more eloquently in Bad Boys II than I could ever hope to: