October Fixture Bonanza

moses

Can't We Just Be Nice?
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We can't have played nine matches in a month too frequently.

2nd Away To City
6th Away to Omonia
9th Away To Everton
13th Home to Omonia
16th Home to Newcastle
19th Home to Spurs
22nd Away To Chelsea
27th Home To Sheriff
30th Home to West Ham

Predict them line ups!

We then have just two league matches in November, away to Villa and Fulham, then the next one on the 26th December, home to Forest. It's another reason to hate the world cup. October will be like some mini tournament of it's own.
 
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At least it’s just the Europa League - we should win it, but not by fielding the core 11. Also we need players from the core 11 fresh considering most of them will have a World Cup afterwards.

in short: play the core 11 in the league and it’s not the biggest problem compared to other clubs who play Champions League
 
If we scrap the EL it's not bad except the Newcaste/Spurs/Chelsea week.
 
It’s good we’re playing the weakest team in our group this month. Our second 11 should be strong enough to get 6 points from those two games.
 
We can rotate for zeal games so it only looks bad, it’s CL teams not including City that has the problem
 
We’ll have to lean hard on our squad players, which I’m actually quite confident will work out well for us. No fear whatsoever.
 
moses said:
We can't have played nine matches in a month too frequently.

2nd Away To City
6th Away to Omonia
8th Away To Everton
13th Home to Omonia
16th Home to Newcastle
19th Home to Spurs
22nd Away To Chelsea
27th Home To Sheriff
30th Home to West Ham

Predict them line ups!

We then have just two league matches in November, away to Villa and Fulham, then the next one on the 26th December, home to Forest. It's another reason to hate the world cup. October will be like some mini tournament of it's own.
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Everton is Sunday 9th I believe? It's usually Thursday-Sunday, never Thursday-Saturday.
 
That is an ugly month with City, Spurs and Chelsea.

6 league games - would we take 3 wins, 2 draws and a loss right now? 11/18 wouldn't be a terrible return but not amazing either.

Realistically it's hard to get a prolonged "easy" run of fixtures these days as in a well distributed fixture list, every 4th game is against a fellow top 6 side.
 
Yay! football to watch every other day.

Just as long as everyone doesn’t lose their shit when the team drops a few pints…be happy and enjoy the matches! :)
 
moses said:
We can't have played nine matches in a month too frequently.

2nd Away To City
6th Away to Omonia
9th Away To Everton
13th Home to Omonia
16th Home to Newcastle
19th Home to Spurs
22nd Away To Chelsea
27th Home To Sheriff
30th Home to West Ham

Predict them line ups!

We then have just two league matches in November, away to Villa and Fulham, then the next one on the 26th December, home to Forest. It's another reason to hate the world cup. October will be like some mini tournament of it's own.
Click to expand...
The benefit is we could probably field weaker teams in europa whereas Chelsea and Spurs will have strong lineups for UCL games. May give us an edge.
 
Chief123 said:
The benefit is we could probably field weaker teams in europa whereas Chelsea and Spurs will have strong lineups for UCL games. May give us an edge.
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Yeah. Ah it will be fun especially after this famine.
 
ForeverRed1 said:
I’d take 12 points out if 18 in those fixtures
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Funnily 3 wins 3 draws could be quite a big difference from 4 wins 2 losses even though it's the same points. Avoiding losing to City (for ego), and avoiding giving 3 points to Spurs/Chelsea to aid us the top 4 race.
 
Dominos said:
Funnily 3 wins 3 draws could be quite a big difference from 4 wins 2 losses even though it's the same points. Avoiding losing to City (for ego), and avoiding giving 3 points to Spurs/Chelsea to aid us the top 4 race.
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agreed, that would be my ideal scenario (realistic). Just don’t lose.
 
Chief123 said:
The benefit is we could probably field weaker teams in europa whereas Chelsea and Spurs will have strong lineups for UCL games. May give us an edge.
Click to expand...
Yes that's an underrated aspect of Europa vs CL.

Europa is always made out to be more fatiguing because of the extra KO round and consistent Thursday-Sunday schedule, but Europa teams have the luxury of playing a 2nd string in Europa should they choose. CL teams have to go full pelt due to the important of the competition and higher level of competition. Spurs/Chelsea have already dropped points in their group too so hopefully they go into final group game 6 still needing points.

I really hope ETH sticks to rotating heavily for the Europa and we should scrape through the group, we should only start taking it seriously in the latter stages.
 
moses said:
We can't have played nine matches in a month too frequently.
Click to expand...

Bored so looked it up. The last 5 times it happened were:

Jan 2020
Dec 2019
Dec 2017
Dec 2013
Jan 2009

December and January of the 2019/20 season was a proper slog!
vyuRDn5.png
 
This is what a big squad is for :drool: . Underperforming players need to find some form and fitness though (Lindelof, Fred, Ronaldo, Shaw, Martial, Elanga) for us to get some positive results. Our best players so far have been fantastic but we need others to step up
 
Chipper said:
Bored so looked it up. The last 5 times it happened were:

Jan 2020
Dec 2019
Dec 2017
Dec 2013
Jan 2009

December and January of the 2019/20 season was a proper slog!
vyuRDn5.png
Click to expand...

Good work, excellent nerding!
 
Dominos said:
Yes that's an underrated aspect of Europa vs CL.

Europa is always made out to be more fatiguing because of the extra KO round and consistent Thursday-Sunday schedule, but Europa teams have the luxury of playing a 2nd string in Europa should they choose. CL teams have to go full pelt due to the important of the competition and higher level of competition. Spurs/Chelsea have already dropped points in their group too so hopefully they go into final group game 6 still needing points.

I really hope ETH sticks to rotating heavily for the Europa and we should scrape through the group, we should only start taking it seriously in the latter stages.
Click to expand...
I’ve never really understood the Thursday Sunday “fatigue”. Because there are UCL teams that play Wednesday Saturday which is the same gap. And even Saturday league followed by Tues UCL.
 
moses said:
We can't have played nine matches in a month too frequently.

2nd Away To City
6th Away to Omonia
9th Away To Everton
13th Home to Omonia
16th Home to Newcastle
19th Home to Spurs
22nd Away To Chelsea
27th Home To Sheriff
30th Home to West Ham

Predict them line ups!

We then have just two league matches in November, away to Villa and Fulham, then the next one on the 26th December, home to Forest. It's another reason to hate the world cup. October will be like some mini tournament of it's own.
Click to expand...

Is it all PL/EL or are there some cup games too? Otherwise that Newcastle-Spurs-Chelsea spell looks impossible.
 
Chief123 said:
I’ve never really understood the Thursday Sunday “fatigue”. Because there are UCL teams that play Wednesday Saturday which is the same gap. And even Saturday league followed by Tues UCL.
Click to expand...
My interpretation of it is this.

With Europa there will only ever be 2 full days before your league game on the weekend (Fri,Sat). (Very rare exception for Monday night game)

In the CL, there are 4 possible combinations that will vary, and only 1 of them involves a 2 day gap so you will often get a longer rest before your weekend league game.
Tuesday-Saturday
Tuesday-Sunday
Wednesday-Saturday
Wednesday-Sunday

The flip side is with the Europa you're guaranteed a 3 day gap before you play your Europa game. In the CL often you only have 2 free days before your midweek CL game.

So in effect, on average you get less rest in the lead up to your league games when you're in the Europa, but more garaunteed rest in the lead up to your European games.
Conversely, on average you get less garaunteed rest in lead up to your European games when you're in the CL, but more rest in the lead up to your league games.

So in theory Europa is more likely to negatively effect your league form purely from a scheduling perspective.
 
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Chief123 said:
I’ve never really understood the Thursday Sunday “fatigue”. Because there are UCL teams that play Wednesday Saturday which is the same gap. And even Saturday league followed by Tues UCL.
Click to expand...

I think it has an impact of sorts.

Thursday Sunday, if you're playing a team who aren't in Europe means you're going up against a team who haven't played since the previous weekend with only Friday and Saturday off. If you were in the CL you could have 3 days off if the league match was on a Sunday, maybe 4 if your CL match was on the Tuesday. You've got the same 2 days off as Europa if it's Wednesday Saturday, 3 if it's Tuesday Saturday so Tuesday Saturday seems easier on paper.

Thursday Sunday, if your Sunday PL match is against a CL team means they've got at least 1 more days rest than you, possibly 2 and you're going to be playing someone good. Arsenal have Liverpool on a Sunday like this in October. Arsenal playing Bodo Glimt on the Thursday, Liverpool facing Rangers on the Tuesday before they meet each other.

Saturday Tuesday I'd have thought would mostly be felt in Tuesday night's CL match. Most leagues will be playing on the Saturday so you're going to be equal with your European opponent a lot of the time although some leagues schedule their CL participants league matches on a Friday to help them out in that competition.

Edit: Clarified a bit in the first paragraph. Was thinking along the lines of Sunday league matches after European matches no matter which competition at first.
 
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Dominos said:
My interpretation of it is this.

With Europa there will only ever be 2 full days before your league game on the weekend (Fri,Sat).

In the CL, there are 4 possible combinations and only 1 of them involves a 2 day gap.
Tuesday-Saturday
Tuesday-Sunday
Wednesday-Saturday
Wednesday-Sunday

The flip side is with the Europa you're guaranteed a 3 day gap before you play your Europa game. In the CL often you only have 2 free days before your midweek European game.

So in effect, on average you get less rest in the lead up to your league games when you're in the Europa, but more rest in the lead up to your European games.
Conversely, on average you get less rest in the lead up to your European games when you're in the CL, but more rest in the lead up to your league games.

So in theory Europa is more likely to negatively effect your league form purely from a scheduling perspective.
Click to expand...

A team could also play Thursday/Monday.
 
Rozay said:
A team could also play Thursday/Monday.
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Yes sorry that crossed my mind but generally you might play Monday night league game once per season (unless it's more common than I think) so worth treating it as an outlier.
 
Hopefully some of our squad players have gained some much needed match fitness over the international break, because we will need them. Thinking particularly of Shaw and Casemiro and Ronaldo who have looked off the pace so far. An added bonus would be if ETH manages to get a tune out of some of the players who weren't away on international duty and haven't had a look in so far, like Wan-Bissaka, Van de Beek and one or two youngsters.
 
MileStolar said:
Football bloody hell, chairmen are running players into the ground... It's not just physical it's also mental strain
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We have a big squad. The same 11 players are not going to be starting every game.
 
I'll be happy if we make it through these games alive and not seeing Maguire would be an added bonus.
 
Tough fixtures domestically which worries me if we were to pick up a couple of injuries.
 
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