fixtures list

Don’t panic (2): Sunderland’s home start sees Arsenal, Liverpool, two Manchesters, Newcastle, Chelsea and Spurs after Fulham

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Jake imagines a future of solid endeavour and achievement
Jake imagines a future of solid endeavour and achievement


Stop Press: the ESPN piece is now live: Police horses of Tyneside beware: Newcastle play Sunderland in February. Click http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/sunderland?cc=5739


So the fixtures list is out and, on superficial analysis, does Sunderland few favours.

After a winnable opener at home to Fulham, the sequence of home games at the Stadium of Light runs like this: Arsenal, Liverpool, Man Utd, Newcastle, Man City, Chelsea, Spurs. From that list of our first eight home games, we can look at the equivalent ties of last season and present, without comment, this record: P8 W1 D3 L4 F7 A11 Pts6.

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Fixtures: beat Liverpool, Newcastle, Swansea to lead Premier by Aug 27

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Not such a tall oder then. Having grabbed nine points from an easy start to the 2011-12 season, we would need only to hold our own until the final, title-clinching game at home to Manchester United on May 13. The heavies of the Football Data Co stand between Salut! Sunderland and publication of the full list, but we can say it should be taken with a sizeable pinch of salt.. As Pete Sixsmith points out, the first two games are already prime targets for switching …

Liverpool away, Newcastle at home. The old fixture computer has certainly given us a couple of beauties to start the season with. Jordan Henderson and Andy Carroll followed by whatever ragtag bunch of nonentities Pardew has managed to throw together over the summer. And we have three weeks to clean up the mess that the overweight sweaty ones invariably leave behind.

Unfortunately, I can’t see either of these two starting at 3pm on a Saturday. The media’s long running love affair with all things Anfield and Dalglish, plus the expected involvement of Jordan, will have Sky and ESPN going weak at the knees on an opening day which has no real standout game.

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