We may be watching football from France but Sunderland fans will be looking through the fixture list today for the domestic season.
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Leicester’s bid to retain the title they won against all the odds sees Claudio Ranieri’s men travel to Liverpool and Manchester United on September 9 and 24, with trips to Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur coming on October 15 and 29. Arsenals are also waiting for the test at the beginning of the season.
Jose Mourinho will hope to fare better at Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium that Louis van Gaal.
Red Devils will play their first match against Bournemouth.
And while the first two games against title favourites Manchester City and neighbours Middlesbrough are challenging ones on paper, they are encounters which the Sunderland boss is relishing. Four other teams are also on the road in these three rounds, Stoke City, Tottenham, West Brom and West Ham.
Last season champions Leicester will be aiming to preserve the record of the defending champions in their opening match against Hull City.
Two former Southampton managers will trade blows on the pitch as Ronald Koeman’s first taste as Everton manager will be to host Spurs, managed by his predecessor at Saints, Maurico Pochettino.
The festive period sees games on Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve, when Liverpool host City.
The personal enmity between Mourinho and Guardiola, developed along the Real Madrid-Barcelona axis in Spain, is perfectly weighted for the Premier League soap opera and finds uniquely fecund ground in England’s North-west with Guardiola’s City “project” seeking to gain some of the cachet that attaches to United.
Adding those rankings up and dividing by seven to represent the number of games each team will play by the start of the October worldwide break then provided an average position for each clubs’ opponents.
Manchester United are then at home to (currently) managerless Southampton before heading off to play Steve Bruce’s newly-promoted Hull. Our run-in last season was nice on paper, but it meant for nothing as our position as Premier League also-rans was already confirmed.
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His bitter rival from his days at Chelsea, Arsene Wenger, will have his Arsenal side host Liverpool in the most high-profile match of the opening day.
