The Barclays Premier League Thread 2014/2015

[stokeriño]

Stoke will be pleased to know the May Bank Holiday they're home to Liverpool.

YAY!

...It's in the midst of a lovely run involving other games against United, Arsenal, and potential CL knockouts, but YAY!

Speaking of the CL: Jesus, I've just seen the games we get on the weekends after the CL group games:

* Manchester City away

* Arsenal home

* Manchester United away

* Liverpool away

* Sunderland away

* Hull City home

...Okay it tails off a bit at the end, but by then we could already be fucked.

[Plubby]

Oh, tragic. Chelsea gon' get boned >_<

[Jimmy]

Back to back games against Chelsea/United and Arsenal/Liverpool over the season aren't ideal, but it's not a bad fixture list. Poch has the perfect place to start the season if he can beat West Ham because, seriously, how the fuck did we lose to them three times last season?

edit: Ooh, Everton away on the last day ain't nice.

[stokeriño]

To be fair, given last season, I really ought to be looking for the away fixtures against the like of Villa, Palace, etc...

[Baddar]

United have what SHOULD be a straight-forward August/September/most of October.

The downside to that is, if we win most of them as we'll be expected to do, people will assume LVG is the 2nd coming of Fergie and nothing is wrong, despite not playing a top half team by that point.

[Gorka]

Not happy with having United again in the opener, but from then on the fixture list seems to improve with Burnley, West Brom, Newcastle.

November isn't so nice, Everton and Man City away with Arsenal between the two.

[stokeriño]

It also occurs to me that on the aforementioned weekends, City, Arsenal and Liverpool will also have had to play Champions League matches in the preceding midweek.

Nevermind then. >_>

[Rich]

Leicester have a wonderful opening set of fixtures...

[lanky316]

Back to back games against Chelsea/United and Arsenal/Liverpool over the season aren't ideal, but it's not a bad fixture list. Poch has the perfect place to start the season if he can beat West Ham because, seriously, how the fuck did we lose to them three times last season?

edit: Ooh, Everton away on the last day ain't nice.

West Ham getting their cup final on day 1? I already see the ranting about Poch not being up to the job.

On the plus side I genuinely believe Spurs could see the premiership trophy won at White Hart Lane this season. Man City on the 2nd of May.

Edited June 18, 2014 by lanky316

[Lineker]

QPR v Leicester on the last day, potentially tasty.

[Benji]

Leicester have a wonderful opening set of fixtures...

Tell me about it, four out of five came in the top five last year. Baptism of fire

[Gazz]

Newcastle don't win games in December.

Oddly, we play Burnley and Chelsea in December and January.

[Hobo]

Southampton, Man City and Spurs to start things off.

Hmmm, not sure if good or bad.

[METALMAN]

Something I find interesting is that there are match days on 2, 9, 16 and 24 May. Assuming the Champions League final is on 31 May, where does the FA Cup final go?

[Matt]

I assume that the cup final will be the 17th and the finalists will just play their fixtures from the 16th a couple of weeks before during the week.

[METALMAN]

That's a load of bollox if it doesn't get a separate weekend. I don't care about the shitty league.

[EddieG]

FA Cup final is May 30th.

Champions League is June 6th.

[DavidMarrio]

Southampton, Man City and Spurs to start things off.

Hmmm, not sure if good or bad.

Suppose it means we play Southampton and Spurs under new managers which can be a good thing as they might not have the right idea of what tactics they'll use or the right players to put in.

Least we get the away games to the Etihad and White Hart Lane out the way. Despite smashing Spurs last season our record is still shit there.

[Cheeky Hughes]

Not liking City's opening fixtures.

On the plus side, our run-in is lovely.

[Lineker]

Vanishing spray will not be introduced into the Premier League next season despite it being considered a success at the 2014 Fifa World Cup in Brazil. The new initiative marks out where a free-kick should be taken from and where the defensive wall must stand, aiming to prevent players cheating. It will be used in the Champions League from next season. But the Premier League and Football Association will monitor how effective that is before introducing it. The FA remains open-minded about possible future use should it prove to be an overwhelming success. But Premier League officials do not think encroachment or ball moving at set pieces is a significant problem in the competition.

Burnley manager Sean Dyche has signed a new contract.