By Paul Culff
With the release of the Barclays Premier League fixture list, a football supporter can’t help but get excited. Basically the only other football “excitement” that occurs during the summer are the endless transfer rumors, of which Liverpool seems to be linked to every player across the globe. So let’s switch it to back to football and what might happen on the pitch beginning in August………
Bring on Saturday August 13 when Sunderland (those poor things) visit Anfield. Whether this is Jordan Henderson’s first appearance against his old club remains to be seen but it is sure to be a huge occasion no matter what. Others to be wearing the LFC colors is also a bit of a mystery but I see nothing but a WIN to start off our season for our home supporters.
Momentum will be the key as we have seen towards the end of this past season. A win in week 1 will set us up nicely to take on the Gunners at the Emirates in Round 2. What has notoriously been a tough fixture for us, hopefully we don’t have to leave it so late this time to steal some points from Arsenal. Stevie G has already come out and said that we need to “hit the ground running”. After this past season beginning under Woy, we struggled early on and could not recover enough to challenge. Too much damage was done by Christmas. The job King Kenny did in 2011 was extraordinary and he must be commended. However I think we have all learned that a poor start to our campaign will seriously hamper our title chances or even Champions League aspirations. However I have no doubt Damien Comolli and King Kenny will get their transfer business out of the way early and that way, with the help of Steve Clarke, our squad is training collectively and effectively before the end of July.
So without going into too much detail, here is my take on the fixture list broken down into months.
August = ******** (H), ******** (A), ******** (H) = 7 points
September = ******** (A), ******** (A), ******** (H) = 5 points
October = ******** (A), ******** (H), ******** (H), ******** (A) = 10 points
November = ******** (H), ******** (A), ******** (H) = 6 points
December = ******** (A), ******** (H), ******** (A), ******** (A), ******** (H), ******** (H) = 14 points
January = ******** (A), ******** (H), ******** (A), ******** (A) = 7 points
February = ******** (H), ******** (A), ******** (H), = 5 points
March = ******** (A), ******** (A), ******** (H), ******** (A) = 9 points
April = ******** (H), ******** (A), ******** (H), ******** (H), ******** (A) = 12 points
May = ******** (H), ******** (A) = 6 points
**Due to silly copyright laws, we are not able to display the fixtures, the full fixture list can be found here…
TOTAL = 81 POINTS
Based on 2010/11 standings, this would finish us as Champions however I do not see that happening as much as I dream for that. I actually think 2011/12 will see the “top” teams drop fewer points to the “lesser” teams. I expect that the gap will widen again after this transfer window as most of the tops teams will be strengthening. I think I have us losing only 3 or 4 games however I also have us drawing games we could lose and winning games we could draw. Eventually, 81 points will be enough for 3rd place.
Finally, I see December and January being an area of the fixture list we could really gain some points. February is a tough run of fixtures but again in March and April we could go on a bit of a run against some “lesser” teams, injuries permitting. We may see that Chelsea game taking on huge significance in one way or another in May. Your thoughts?
All that is left to say is that I can’t wait.
YNWA – Culffy