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Dicky

Fixtures

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Easy first games - Palace, Sunderland, Stoke, Southampton, Bournemouth (then Liverpolol)

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No games will be easy - but the opening six fixtures could have been a lot worse.........

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Happy with the whole thing, decent start, am on holiday in August so will miss Stoke at home, I can live with that lol.Couple of home games over the festive period, and not as bad a run in as last time.Pretty pleased with that, overall!

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Saints are ''easy'', are they?!

As always, a lot could depend on who we are playing in relation to the euro fixtures, hopefully we''ll drop ''lucky'' a couple of times.

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[quote user="morty"]Happy with the whole thing, decent start, am on holiday in August so will miss Stoke at home, I can live with that lol.Couple of home games over the festive period, and not as bad a run in as last time.Pretty pleased with that, overall![/quote]

Think we can get some points on the board early doors and enjoy the season

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The final three games look very tough and we have a poor record against Palace but there are really no runs of matches where we should get into a rut and if we hit the ground running we can get the kind of start which will lead to staying up.

Sometimes it''s best to catch the big sides early and we don''t but this set of fixtures didn''t exactly send a shiver down my spine.

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[quote user="Dicky"][quote user="morty"]Happy with the whole thing, decent start, am on holiday in August so will miss Stoke at home, I can live with that lol.Couple of home games over the festive period, and not as bad a run in as last time.Pretty pleased with that, overall![/quote]

Think we can get some points on the board early doors and enjoy the season[/quote]I would really, really like to see us win on the opening day!

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[quote user="Branston Pickle"]Saints are ''easy'', are they?!

As always, a lot could depend on who we are playing in relation to the euro fixtures, hopefully we''ll drop ''lucky'' a couple of times.[/quote]

Think Saints will struggle this year. Have over achieved.

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With winnable games at the beginning of the season it is even more important to get transfer business done early.

Need players in place when Crystal Palace turn up on 8th August. Norwich will have played 4 games by the time the window closes - all of which they can reasonably hope to get points from (although Saints away will be very tough).

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Not sure that Palace Stoke and Southampton are easy games; ones we should be looking to get points - but all three are top 10 sides who ended the season well;

they will be tough games but strong performances could set the season up well for us.

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The toughest period looks like 31/10-26/12, when we have:

away - Man City, Chelsea, Watford, Man Utd & Spurs

home - Swansea, Arsenal, Everton

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No easy games, but pleased with the opening fixtures. An opportunity to get points on the board and avoid the media spotlight on clubs around the relegation places.  Will still be one tough season.

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Important for clubs of our size to face the CL and EL teams at the right times. Espescially facing teams playing Europa league on the weekend AFTER their Thursday EL games is good.

Same for CL group stages. Could be benefitial to face Man C, Arsenal, Man U and Chelsea either weekend BEFORE or weekend AFTER their CL games.

Everton have had good effect of such luck in recent seasons.

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[quote user="Dicky"]Easy first games - Palace, Sunderland, Stoke, Southampton, Bournemouth (then Liverpolol)[/quote]

Easy? Where have you been?

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There are no easy games at this level but if we are going to stay in this division then we need to be able to take some points off the likes of Palace, Stoke and Southampton, especially in our home games.

I think all in all the fixture list has been reasonably kind to us in that there is no run of 5 or 6 games on the trot where you look at it and just can;t see us picking up the odd point here and there. We had that twice in the season we went down and its when you get on a run like that that things start to derail and players lose confidence.

We have a tricky last 3 games if we are still in the relegation battle but we have a kind opening 5 fixtures that give us a good chance of getting some points on the board early in the season and thus getting the confidence up. If you want an example of how helpful that can be look at Southampton last season who had a very kind set of fixtures over the opening 2 months and by the time they started playing the big boys they were so confident that a few defeats did not hamper their season.

As we saw under Hughton, one good run for 8-10 games can give you enough points to stay up in this league and one bad run can kill you whether its at the start or the end of the season.

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are the dates for CL & EL known yet?

Found the answer if anyone is interested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_UEFA_Champions_League#Qualifying_rounds

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In regard to Champions/Europa League fixture clashes;

Norwich''s away game comes after they have a Europa League Group game (so will be moved to Sunday 20th September).

The Arsenal home game is also the weekend after they have a Champions'' League group game (so will be moved if Arsenal play on the Wednesday).

The away game to Southampton will be after their Europa League play-off game, if Southampton progress through their third round qualifier.

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Strange thing is when I look at the fixture list I don''t get the feeling of trepidation I did last time we went up.

Maybe I''m kidding myself

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[quote user="Mr Jenkins"]Strange thing is when I look at the fixture list I don''t get the feeling of trepidation I did last time we went up.

Maybe I''m kidding myself[/quote]Ditto, for all sorts of reasons.But I think the fixture list has been fairly kind to us. The start and finish both could have been worse.I feel we have a decent chance of getting a few points on the board early doors, which is important.

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But lets also not forget that we still have many of the players who finished 12th and 11th in the PL. The real difference to last time when we were relegated is that we''ve totally changed our strikers, as well as style of play.

Although I do worry that Jerome will not get many goals because he never really has in this league, the fact that we are playing a much more balanced and attacking game than before means that hopefully we can spread the load to the midfielders a bit more. I do think we need 1 key marquee signing in attack though (either in the striking department or attacking mids) as well as defence either at CB or at RB if Martin is to play in the middle next to Bassong

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Mrs M "I do think we need 1 key marquee signing in attack though (either in the striking department or attacking mids) as well as defence either at CB or at RB if Martin is to play in the middle next to Bassong "

Yes I agree about a striker or attacking mid field player, would also like to see some decent cover in for Olsson, what''s his brother like?😄

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ahh good thinking. Murphy twins and Olsson twins would be very marketable. Perhaps should get Rafael and Fabio as cover just incase.

For cover at LB which we need, I wonder if we''ll go for the former accies LB who went to the spammers - Stephen Hendrie

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[quote user="Bethnal Yellow and Green"]In regard to Champions/Europa League fixture clashes;

Norwich''s away game comes after they have a Europa League Group game (so will be moved to Sunday 20th September).

The Arsenal home game is also the weekend after they have a Champions'' League group game (so will be moved if Arsenal play on the Wednesday)

Don''t understand the Arsenal comment above, since when does a Wednesday game force a change to Sunday ?.

The away game to Southampton will be after their Europa League play-off game, if Southampton progress through their third round qualifier.[/quote]

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