Fixture List 2011/12 Season - The Start Of The Season

The 2011/12 premier league fixture list was released today and I thought I would have a quick look over and check which of the big teams will have the easiest start to the new campaign that kicks off on the 13th of August.

Manchester United
West Brom (A)
Tottenham Hotspur (H)
Arsenal (H)
Bolton (A)

Chelsea
Stoke (A)
West Brom (H)
Norwich (H)
Sunderland (A)

Arsenal
Newcastle (A)
Liverpool (H)
Manchester United (A)
Swansea City (H)

Manchester City
Swansea City (H)
Bolton (A)
Tottenham Hotspur (A)
Wigan (H)

Liverpool
Sunderland (H)
Arsenal (A)
Bolton (H)
Stoke (A)

At the end of the day, you've got to play each team anyway so should it really matter what order you play them in? I think a good start to the season is vital to a team's success over the course of the campaign as it puts early pressure on your rivals to perform well. In my opinion the teams listed above are the potential title challengers and they all have relatively difficult starts to the season, out of the bunch I would say Chelsea have got the easiest looking line up for the first 4 games and I would fully expect them to pick up 10-12 points. Manchester United are notoriously slow starters and with tricky games against the likes of Arsenal, Spurs and Bolton, United will have to be playing well to get sufficient points out of those games. I'm really looking forward to seeing how Liverpool do under the guidance of Kenny Dalglish for a whole season and a good start must be a necessity, however they will face tough games away at Arsenal and Stoke so the squad will be thrown in at the deep end and will hopefully pull some wins out of the bag.

Arsenal are most usually very good starters to the season but they have drawn the short straw with a very difficult first 3 games. Should things not go their way they could be looking at 0 points after the first 3 games! Manchester City face a tough game against Spurs but apart from that they should be looking to pick up maximum points.

These are my predictions for the amount of points my 'Top 5' will be on after the first 4 games:

Chelsea -12 points
Manchester United - 9 points
Manchester City - 9 points
Liverpool - 9 points
Arsenal - 7 points

Matt Cooper