Fixture List Thoughts

The rumour doing the rounds was correct, City are away to Arsenal in a Champions v Champions clash, live on Sky at 8pm on Friday 19th August to open the season. The LAST countdown timer to the right has been updated!

Its a baptism of the fire thats for sure but what a welcome back. No one is expecting us to get anything and its certainly something to entice any new signings with. Of course Ellis Simms we may do a Micky Quinn, score another hat trick for a 3-0 win on the opening day, just like 1993. We could also hope for a few own goals like Lee Dixon's. We were actually away at Arsenal last in the FA Cup in 2014 and went down 4-0. Piers Morgan tweeted "this is easy". I'd love to tweet that back at him. City's last PL game was at Highbury, obviously in relegation season, City went down 2-1.

Second up is Hull at home and without sounding dramatic, that's probably a must win. They have financial problems, came up via the play offs after finishing 6th and are probably the bookies favourites to go down. Its especially important as after starting the season at Arsenal away the 3rd game is....

Away to Man City. One way of looking at it is we get 2 of the hardest away games out the way. The last time we visited Man City was in the Championship (Division 1 back then) and we lost 4-2 despite a Lee Mills brace. Huckerby scored for Man City and both teams had actually been relegated the year before. Fair to say they went in opposite directions after that........ The home game was also full of goals, possibly the best game of those days, a 4-3 win to City at HR. The last time we played away to Man City in the Premier League we actually won 2-1 with goals from Bellamy and an Edghill own goal

Of course, the most important fixtures will be Aston Vile home and away. We first encounter them on Saturday December 12th at 3pm but thats bound to change for TV. The last time we played them at home was a 1-1 draw, Dublin opened the scoring and Hadji equalised near the end, Ysrael Zuniga started up front. For some reason PTSD has erased the memory of the away game that season. We go to Vile Park on Saturday 24th April where we will confirm our European spot whilst relegating Vile and we can wave bye bye to the Holte End. Told you I'd forgotten all about it.

Next to look for is Boxing Day where we face Chelsea at home, should be a cracker. The New Years game is on Saturday 2nd January and is also a cracker - Liverpool away!

The other local game is Forest and we have faced them a fair few times in the Championship. We haven't faced them in the PL since 98/99 when we lost away game early in the season 1-0 and won the home game 4-0 with a hat trick from Huckerby. The away game is on Saturday 19th September and the home game is the last game of the season on Sunday 30th May.

Hold on folks, its going to be a ride!