Chelsea are the team everyone wants to avoid, as they are unbeaten on the opening weekend of the last 16 PL seasons (W14 D2) since 2-1 defeat at Coventry, Aug 1998. Jose Mourinho also has a 100 per cent record on the opening day. Norwich have not won in their last 12 opening League fixtures since a 4-0 Div One home win v Grimsby in Aug 2002. However, should City get the Blues 'away' on the first day we should also remember that Alex Neil has NEVER lost an away fixture since becoming Norwich boss. Ergo, something's gotta give !
I'd like Sunderland away - get both of the games against them early enough in the season and before they start one of their miraculous recoveries!
Watford at home would do for me or perhaps Bournemouth, Villa or Sunderland. In other words anyone who we would deem as 'beatable' to hopefully get us off to a winning start. To get three points on the board in the first game would be brilliant
It would be a great test of how far we have come since we played them on the final day. The ridiculous run in last time meant we needed to be safe by March .
I really do not care as we will play everyone twice anyway. However I agree that Sunderland early would on recent history be more welcome.
If pushed I would go for Ipswich at home because that would be a really...............................oh hang on though!
So what are the fixtures people are looking out for? I'm probably most interested in the London away games as I should be able to get to many of those. Then it's the run in which, as we well know, can be vitally important to survival. Then there's all the other interesting ones, opening game, Boxing Day etc
Here we go, your handy 'cut out and keep' list http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/norwich-city/fixtures
Our first five home games should all be winnable. A rather generous start to the season until the last match in October.
All depends how we're fixed points-wise before that kicks in. We were in the doo doo pretty much last time, before the last four games. Spurs on Boxing Day will be fun - last time I went to that one (1993), we beat them 3-1, Sutton 2, Ekoku 1
Getting points together early would be good for confidence. Now we've got the list all eyes turn to transfers and preseason. Exciting.
Somehow these seem much more reasonable that last time out in the PL. There aren't so many of the successive games where you know it's unlikely you will pick up points. Maybe I got out of bed with rose-tinted eyeballs, but I reckon that if we get a decent return from our first five games, we can really crack-on. I love fixtures release day - makes the promotion seem that much more exciting.
Basically we need to be 'safe' after we've played Watford (H) IMHO Anyone looking for bad omens, the last time we played Palarse at home on the first day of the season we were relegated !
