EPL fixtures for 2012/13 season: Arsenal and their opponents

Le voilà. The new fixture list has arrived. And do we see anything strange at first sight?

Well, according to some of the British press, Sir Alex is already unhappy because he says United will have to play away from home after five of their six midweek Champions League group matches, including trips to Liverpool, Newcastle United, and Chelsea. Man City, of course have the reverse situation in which they have only one trip to make after midweek in Europe: against Chelsea at the end of November.

This is the reverse from last season, when Manchester United played at Old Trafford after each European midweek group stage game.

Which suggests maybe home or away doesn’t matter, since United went out at the group stages last year.

Arsenal have three away trips (Manchester City, WHU and Aston Villa) after Euro games.

Sir Alex has been agitated about this before, but it didn’t do much good then, and presumably won’t now. He said he would send “his man” to the Premier League computer to see how the fixtures were sorted. I wonder if he did.

Anyway, apparently the conservative forces that are in charge have not really been influenced too much as a quick review of the games shows that we play each team at home and away during the season.

When we play however is a different matter – and this does affect mid-week European matches. A Tuesday game in Europe, followed by a Sunday afternoon game on TV in the league is very different from a Wednesday match followed by a tough away game on Saturday.

The first real top game at the Emirates is against Chelsea at the end of September. The weekend of 17 November we will be seeing the lot from down the road passing by. Manchester City should be coming to the Emirates around 12 January and Manchester United will be coming on April 27.

One thing I rather like is the fact that we go to Stoke on the second day of the season. So the conditions should be ok with the pitch still being a football pitch. And you know this is one of those games you want to get out of the way so you don’t have to think about them any more. From then on we can think of only football games. Unless some other teams want to adapt to a rugby style of game of course.

The season ends for Arsenal at Newcastle. But lots of balls will be kicked in before we get that far.

AUGUST

18 Sat Barclays Premier League Sunderland H

25 Sat Barclays Premier League Stoke City A

SEPTEMBER

1 Sat Barclays Premier League Liverpool A

15 Sat Barclays Premier League Southampton H

22 Sat Barclays Premier League Manchester City A

26 Wed Capital One Cup 3rd Round

29 Sat Barclays Premier League Chelsea H

OCTOBER

6 Sat Barclays Premier League West Ham United A

20 Sat Barclays Premier League Norwich City A

27 Sat Barclays Premier League Queens Park Rangers H

31 Wed Capital One Cup 4th Round

NOVEMBER

3 Sat Barclays Premier League Manchester United A

10 Sat Barclays Premier League Fulham H

17 Sat Barclays Premier League Tottenham Hotspur H

(it continues after that in the normal manner….)