New Fixtures 18-19 | Vital Football

New Fixtures 18-19

I don't think it's either a terrible order but neither is it a great one overall, but to be honest whatever order we got them in was going to be pretty tough as there are no really easy games to pick out. There wont be many games next season where we will be the favourites but maybe could work to our advantage as our biggest struggles last season came when teams parked the bus i can't see anyone showing us that much fear or respect.

Sometimes playing some of the bigger boys early isn't necessarily a bad thing when you are coming up with momentum like we are and you get the chance to catch some of the big sides cold after maybe still gelling due to bedding due to higher player turnover. I think it could be a good time to play Sheff Wed, Villa, Forest and Stoke as i imagine all of them will be busier than most in the window and potentially have quite different starting 11's from the one they finished last season with.

It's a baptism of fire but I think you'd have a better chance getting point from the bigger clubs off the bat than maybe a couple of months in when their new starting line ups become settled. It also saves any of the most likely 6 points for later in the season when we will hopefully have found our feet properly in the division. The thing I'd worry about is getting the likes of Hull, Brentford, Reading Millwall, Bolton - home games that we'll most likely be earmarking as some must wins straight away and losing them due to the fact our lads take time to adjust to the step up while their players had been at this level the previous year. You can easily look at it the opposite way and say with our momentum we'd be more likely to get the points on the board early with those type of games and playing the better teams right away could damage confidence - It can go either way. But personally while it's certainly no walk in the park I'm ok with that opening month.

The Christmas period is pretty bad with back to back away games at 2 of 2 of the most likely favourites. No way of dressing that up - travelling away and having the players in hotels on Christmas when the players want to be with their families is something you ideally avoid. 2 home / local games in that space is something i always hope for.

Millwall at home last day is a game I'm very pleased with - I'd fancy us in that if we needed the points.

I think September and March will be 2 months are the kindest 2 months, some decent fixtures in there that we'll need to make the most of.
 
Awful August that. Compare it to Blackburn’s August you see the straw we’ve been drawn. Forest have just spent 13m on a central midfielder and are my dark horses for the title this year. Also a very tough Christmas schedule. Having said that you look at those fixtures and excitement is the first feeling compared to the dullness of playing the likes of Northampton and Gillingham. We didn’t have an away team sell out the DW once in the league last season and we might have two in our first two home games this season. Bring it!
 
I actually think it's a decent opening set of fixtures personally.

Couple of observations, is there a reason we are now playing home midweek games on a Wednesday, or at least two that I could see at quick glance?

Swansea away over the Christmas period is shocking really given the distance.

Knob end at home on Easter Monday is surprising.

Millwall at home last day. What could possibly go wrong? Amazed that was agreed by the club and especially the local Police.

Appetite is wetted, let's hope we have more entertainment and put up a better display than our last two seasons at this level.
 
I actually think it's a decent opening set of fixtures personally.

Couple of observations, is there a reason we are now playing home midweek games on a Wednesday, or at least two that I could see at quick glance?

Swansea away over the Christmas period is shocking really given the distance.

Knob end at home on Easter Monday is surprising.

Millwall at home last day. What could possibly go wrong? Amazed that was agreed by the club and especially the local Police.

Appetite is wetted, let's hope we have more entertainment and put up a better display than our last two seasons at this level.
Why are you amazed the police agreed to Millwall at home on the last day? We’ve had United at home when they won the league and you think a few hundred Millwall would frighten them! :LOL:
 
Awful August that. Compare it to Blackburn’s August you see the straw we’ve been drawn. Forest have just spent 13m on a central midfielder and are my dark horses for the title this year. Also a very tough Christmas schedule. Having said that you look at those fixtures and excitement is the first feeling compared to the dullness of playing the likes of Northampton and Gillingham. We didn’t have an away team sell out the DW once in the league last season and we might have two in our first two home games this season. Bring it!

You're right that Blackburns fixtures are a much easier start - but the flip side of that is all of their players are taking the step up immedietely into those must win games against players who will have mostly been performing at that level week in and week out for at least the previous season.

If the likes of Dack who've never played at Championship level don't hit the ground running and understandably take a few weeks to adjust to the step up they might end up narrowly losing games that they maybe could've won once the team had fully aclimatised to the Championship.

It happened to us 2 years ago, we had a pretty decent first month of fixtures and we'd have realistically been looking for 10 points from our first 5, but we were all over the place and and blew some of the must win games against poor oppoisiton only coming away with 1 win and a draw when we easily could've beaten at least 4 of those 5 if we had settled ourselves. If we'd have had those early games later in the season (as poor as we were all season) I think we'd have gotten more than we did.

You just never know in football what looks good on paper could easily turn out to be a disaster and what looks like a slice of bad luck might turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
 
I'm glad we don't start so late now. It's bad enough waiting 3 months between seasons.
I felt like Ragged Phil this morning when the fixtures came out :hehe:.

The players are back for pre season next week and hopefully some more movement in transfer market will follow. Then the friendlies start.
Latics are back :wahey: