F365 Features

It seemed like a good idea two hours ago...

ARSENAL
A case of too much of a good thing? Arsenal's opening fixtures are arguably the easiest of any Premier League outfit but the balancing act is a clutch of tough fixtures in succession later in the season - the potentially-decisive month of May begins with Portsmouth away followed by back-to-match games with Manchester United and Chelsea, while November, traditionally the Gunners' worst month of the year, concludes with Manchester United (h), Aston Villa (home), Manchester City (away) and Chelsea (away).

Moreover, the understandable expectation will be that the Gunners should be the early-season frontrunners and any sort of stumble against the likes of West Brom, Bolton and Fulham will bode badly for their long-term title aspirations. On the other hand, given that both Eduardo and the perennially-injured Tomas Rosicky will not be fit for the start of the season, Arsene Wenger has good cause to welcome an apparently straightforward start.

What the Frenchman will not greet kindly is the news that on five of the weekends that follow Champions League midweek encounters, the Gunners have been handed away fixtures.

ASTON VILLA
Gareth Barry's move to Liverpool is merely a matter of time but it will not be long before he returns to Villa Park with his new employers: Pool will be travelling to the second city in the final week of August. Quite how Barry would be greeted by the home support is a matter of discussion at a later date.

Desperate to prove that they can thrive without Barry, the August 30 fixture could be a pivotal point in Villa's campaign as it is followed by trips to Tottenham - their obvious rivals to be the Best of the Rest - and West Brom - their closest geographical rivals in the league next season.

Meanwhile, their Boxing Day date with Arsenal, six days after the return fixture with the Baggies, should be the pick of the Christmas fixtures, but spring promises to be a gruelling test: on consecutive weekends, Villa are scheduled to face Man City (A), Tottenham (H), Liverpool (A), Man Utd (A) and Everton (H).

BLACKBURN ROVERS
With a reunion with former boss Mark Hughes delayed until the penultimate day of the year, Rovers' fixture list is bereft of a stand-out feature. And that's a problem for a club that is struggling to attract interest and sell-out support. If Everton away is a bad start way to start the season, the follow-up, a home date with unglamorous Hull City, is even worse.

Not until as late as mid-October, when the fixture computer has dreamed up back-to-back local derbies with Bolton and Manchester United, is there good reason to suppose that Blackburn's campaign will provide compelling entertainment.

BOLTON WANDERERS
The aforementioned clash with Blackburn could be particularly spicy next season if Sam Allardyce, the former Bolton boss, replaces Hughes at Ewood Park. Rovers, like Bolton, are already been talked down as potential relegation candidates and so that October 18 will be anticipated by both clubs with a mixture of trepidation and relish.

For Bolton, however, it may well be billed as a must-win fixture: it is the fourth block in a five-game sequence that includes games with Arsenal and Manchester United and trips to West Ham and Tottenham.

CHELSEA
After opening up against Portsmouth and Wigan, Luiz Scolari's tenure as Chelsea boss will begin in earnest at the end of August when Tottenham travel to Stamford Bridge before the Blues face Manchester City and then Manchester United on consecutive weekends.

The United match will take place on a weekend following Champions League commitments, but Chelsea have the satisfaction of home advantage and the knowledge that four of the six games after CL encounters will be played at Stamford Bridge. Not even Jose Mourinho could find a conspiracy theory to denounce in that arrangement. And as a former international manager who strenuously exercised his right to demand the attendance of players against their club's wishes, any grievance Scolari feels at learning Chelsea have three away fixtures on the weekends after international encounters should be kept private.

Above all, this is a decent fixture list for Chelsea. At no point during the campaign is there a particularly gruelling run of games and one noticeable feature is that clashes with Big Four rivals are invariably followed by matches that should provide routine victories. The September 20/21 clash with ManYoo, for instance, is followed by a game with Stoke, after Liverpool in late October, Chelsea will then play Hull, and Bolton are the opponents on the weekend after the Blues host Arsenal in November. The theme is then maintained in the second half of the campaign - although, while Stoke and Hull again follow Liverpool and ManYoo respectively, Chelsea will do combat with Blackburn at home rather than Bolton on the weekend after their May date with Arsenal.

After the Blackburn game, the season will then end with a trip to Sunderland on May 24. What price Manchester United requiring a helping hand from their former captain that day?

EVERTON
For a club with Champions League aspirations, Everton have a woeful record against Big Four opposition and it is only by reversing those results that they will break their stranglehold at the top of the table. So what better way to begin that process by beating Liverpool - as they should have done last October but for Mark Clattenburg's unfathomable aberrations - at Goodison Park on September 28? Even three months before the start of another nine-month campaign, this match promises to be the most important of Everton's season. If they can't beat Liverpool on home soil after a run of games that should see the Toffees' confidence flourish - hosting Blackburn on the opening weekend is followed by a points-haul invitation called West Brom (a), Portsmouth (h), Stoke (a), Hull (a) - then, in football-speak rather than a literal sense, they never will.

The inevitable reverse of the fixture list's generosity in August is a daunting start to 2008 - January is completed by the second Merseyside derby of the season being followed by consecutive games against Manchester United and Arsenal.

FULHAM
Fulham's scheduled August 30 match with Manchester United will be postponed because of the champions' European Super Cup commitments and that will be a relief to Roy Hodgson as he cannot have welcomed the prospect of finishing August with back-to-back matches with Arsenal and Manchester United. With that single amendment, the opening sequence of Fulham's fixture list takes on a whole new perspective: rather than dread a harsh start, the Cottagers will instead look at Arsenal as the only team they will face before November that finished in the top six last term.

On an incidental note, Fulham will host Liverpool in early April - the third season in succession that the fixture has been scheduled for such a time in the calendar.

HULL CITY
Hull's fixture list can be studied from every possible angle and the conclusion will still be the same: They will be going down.

LIVERPOOL
Rafa should be pleased with Liverpool's fixture list. While the computer hasn't scheduled the sort of relatively easy start that Pool were provided with last August, it provides four home fixtures on the six weekends that follow Champions League midweekers and three home fixtures to follow international weeks. Crucially, one of those matches will be against Manchester United three days after England take on Croatia in Zagreb.

With their Big Four encounters spread evenly across the calendar, there are no especially demanding periods for Pool to fret over. In summary, it is a well-balanced set of fixtures. As with Chelsea, it is the generally the case that the toughest matches of the season are followed by fixtures that should provide three points: Stoke follow ManYoo, Bolton follow Arsenal in November and Hull follow April's meeting with the Gunners. The season also ends in promising fashion with Liverpool's final five games against Hull, Newcastle, West Ham, West Brom and Tottenham.

MANCHESTER CITY
Conspicuous by its absence on the 2008/09 fixture list is an opportunity for Sky to bill a Grand Slam Sunday. However, there is one weekend that stands out as the next best thing: November 29/30 when Chelsea face Arsenal - the last side to beat them at Stamford Bridge in the Premier League - and Manchester City, who beat their city rivals home and away last term, host Manchester United. Make a note in your diary.

MANCHESTER UNITED
What a miserable holiday Sir must be having. First Cristiano Ronaldo stopped talking to him, then Aaron Ramsey snubbed a move to Old Trafford and Carlos Queiroz reportedly decided to leave Old Trafford to replace Luiz Felipe Scolari as Portugal's national coach. And now this - a Premier League fixture list that probably matches even the worst of the worst-case scenarios envisaged by the Manchester United manager.

Seen out of context from the rest of United's commitments next season, its devilry is not apparent. However, once the rest of the fixture list is crammed in alongside United's league schedule, any irritation Ferguson felt upon studying it would be understandable. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of a harder set of fixtures for Manchester United to undertake on the six weekends that follow the first round of Champions League matches - Chelsea (a), Liverpool (a), Blackburn (a), Everton (a), Arsenal (a), Manchester City (a) and Tottenham (a).

The scheduled three-pointer against Fulham at Old Trafford on August 30 will be postponed because of United's Super Cup fixture against Zenit St Petersburg the day before, ensuring that, with only the home fixture against Newcastle and a tricky trip to Portsmouth taking place before the visits to Anfield and Stamford Bridge, it is far from inconceivable that the champions will be near the bottom of the table even as late as one month into the new campaign.

The optimists may argue that United have an advantage in getting so many of their tough matches out of the way early in the season, it is unlikely that the Scot will be endorsing such a viewpoint. Having stressed the need for a fast start ahead of the last two title-winning campaigns, it is not the south of France sun that will be making Ferguson red this week.

MIDDLESBROUGH
One quirk in the fixture list this year is the number of teams which are required to play Manchester United and Arsenal consecutively at the end of a particular month. Boro are one such club and Gareth Southgate's side could have a decisive say in the title race in late April/early May when they travel to the Emirates - where they drew last season - before taking on Manchester United (for whom they have become something of a bogey team) at the Riverside on May 2.

For the record, the teams to be handed the Arsenal and then ManYoo double whammy are:

Aston Villa (Arsenal, 15 Nov - ManYoo, 22 Nov)

Everton (Arsenal, 28 Jan - ManYoo, 31 Jan)

Fulham (Arsenal, 23 Aug - ManYoo, 30 Aug)

Manchester City (Arsenal, 22 Nov - ManYoo, 29 Nov)

Middlesbrough (Arsenal, 25 Apr - ManYoo, 2 May)

West Ham (Arsenal, 25 Oct - ManYoo, 28 Oct)

Wigan (Arsenal, 11 Apr - ManYoo, 25 Apr).

NEWCASTLE UNITED
Ouch. Having been mauled by Manchester United last season, conceding 11 goals in two games, the last thing Kevin Keegan would have wanted was a trip to Old Trafford on the opening weekend of the season.

If that date is the nightmare scenario for the Toon then it is followed up two weeks later by a close second - an encounter at the Emirates, where Newcastle lost three times in 2007/08, failing to score a single goal over the 270 minutes of play.

PORTSMOUTH
The fixture list computer must have been built in Southampton. Last season, after a gentle opening at Derby, it ordered Portsmouth to begin their campaign with consecutive matches against Manchester United, Bolton, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. This year's opening gambit is only marginally less demanding: Having encountered Manchester United the week before in the Community Shield, Portsmouth are away to Chelsea on the opening weekend of the league season before August is concluded with another clash with Manchester United and a trip to Everton.

STOKE CITYAs with Hull, it is difficult to read Stoke's fixture list without realising the scale of the challenge that awaits them. Bolton (a), Aston Villa (h), Middlesbrough (a), Everton (h) is far from being the hardest possible start but it is still nevertheless difficult to foresee Stoke picking up a couple of points before September's back-to-back matches/defeats to Liverpool and Chelsea.

SUNDERLAND
If Sunderland do become embroiled in another fight against relegation, back-to-back matches against Hull and West Brom in April could provide salvation. Otherwise, this is an unremarkable set of fixtures - although Liverpool, Sunderland's opponents on the opening weekend, should beware underestimating Roy Keane's side in the manner that Tottenham apparently did last April when they travelled to the Stadium of Light.

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR
Once again, Spurs have been handed an away fixture on the opening weekend of a new season - only twice in the Premier League's history have they not endured such an inconvenience.

The long trip to Middlesbrough is followed by more north-east opposition in the form of Sunderland a week later, before Spurs take on Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and then tackle Aston Villa at White Hart Lane. It is an intriguing set of fixtures and one that should provide a reasonably reliable indication of how their season as a whole will develop.

WEST BROM
Arsenal away is a horrible way to begin the Baggies' return to the top flight but Tony Mowbray will not see it that way. Better, surely, for the WBA boss to regard it as a no-lose fixture given the general expectation of a spanking being inflicted. The matches that will have a greater bearing on their fate occur a few weeks later when, on successive weekends, Middlesbrough and Fulham are in opposition.

WEST HAM
Alan Curbishley requires an encouraging - and fast - start to the season if he is to reach a second anniversary as West Ham manager and he must be heartened by a fixture list that sees the Hammers begin the campaign against Wigan, Man City, Blackburn, West Brom, Newcastle, Fulham, Bolton and Hull City. Not until the last week of October - when Arsenal travel to Upton Park - do the Hammers face truly formidable opposition.

However, as is the case elsewhere, a relatively easy start to the season means that a relatively tough period must occur elsewhere and for West Ham that stage in the campaign will be in December when, in succession, they encounter Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea, Aston Villa before travelling to Fratton Park on Boxing Day.

WIGAN
Another club that needs to make hay while the sun is shining. If Wigan are sucked into another fight against relegation on their quagmire of a pitch, they could be sunk in April when a journey to Goodison Park is followed by dates with Arsenal and ManYoo before a tempestuous derby at Ewood Park.

Phew. Finished.