So the leak was fake news.
A tough fixture list in general. Southampton and Burnley away in the first 4 games, Chelsea and Spurs before the 2nd break, City just before the 3rd break. Spurs and the mancs during the new year hangover, City away in April, followed by the run in from hell really. The last 5 scheduled games are Brighton, Burnley, Arsenal, Chelsea, finishing up at Newcastle. Very tough at best.
First time to play Spurs at home before Christmas in 12 years. While December looks favourable, the game at West Ham must be rescheduled because of our pre-Christmas break in Sheikhland. The home derby is in midweek for the first time since 2014, and it's the first game away on December 26 since 2014. We still haven't played in London on the date since 1991. First away game on the last day in 4 years.
There are one or two positives, but all the posters telling us "it doesn't matter when the games are played", are the same posters who will be writing out what we need to do and when we need to do it in the run in, in threads such as "13 Games, Call it", and "The double, is it on?" For the rest of us, our nerves will be shot during the run in, May is not the best time to have to go to Arsenal, and Newcastle away is not the ideal place to go needing a result on the final day either. Chelsea lost 3-0 there 12 months ago, Spurs lost 5-1 a couple of years before that. Hopefully we'll buck the trend.
Winning a league is never easy at the best of times. With Guardiola around, 15 points is all you can afford to drop just to have a chance to win it, that means needing 32-33 wins. 20 points dropped and you can try again next year. I didn't expect a kind fixture list and we haven't got one imo. To me, there looks to be more banana skins than bankers. We'll just have to make the best we can of it.
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