New season, old excitement

You would have thought that at the age of forty-nine I would have grown up enough not to get all excited when the football fixtures for the next season come out. Not a bit of it!

First

The first team I look for is my team, Watford. In amongst the gloom and doom of losing our top scorer Danny Graham to Swansea, our exciting young winger Will Buckley to Brighton, our chief executive resigning and then today, disaster strikes and our excellent manager Malky Mackay leaves for Cardiff, it is really important to have something to get excited about! An opening day trip to Burnley is maybe not a game to get the juices flowing, but home games against relegated sides West Ham and Birmingham follow in the first month. The game we will need to win to go back to the premiership, the last game of the season, is at home to Middlesbrough! (I can dream! I’d settle for survival.)

Anyway, I don’t suppose too many of you are excited about Watford’s fixtures or indeed bothered by the worrying goings-on at the club, so I’ll move on.

Opening

Opening day in the Premier League always throws up some intruiging fixtures and this year is no different. Newly promoted Swansea are thrown right in at the deep end with a trip to Manchester City. The Swans will be looking to show they can cut it at the top level whilst City will be looking to send a message that they are going to be genuine title contenders.

Queens Park Rangers have a winnable fixture at home to Bolton whilst Norwich face a trip to Wigan. Last season, Wigan lost 4-0 at home to Blackpool on the opening day and we all know what happened to them!

Big

Apart from Manchester City playing Swansea, none of the other big guns have games that really stand out. Champions Manchester United travel to West Brom and Arsenal have a trip to Newcastle where they threw away a four goal lead last season. Chelsea have a tough trip to Stoke whilst Liverpool will host Sunderland. Tottenham and Everton, two teams looking to brealk into the top four, will face each other at White Hart Lane.

The big games start coming on the following Saturday when Arsenal are at home to Liverpool and Tottenham travel to Old Trafford.

Ended

I know that last season has only just ended but I can’t wait for the next one to start!

It is a mouth watering prospect and I defy anyone not to get excited about it. I mean it doesn’t get much bigger than Burnley v Watford!