Before that fortnight gap, City have home games against reigning champions Leicester City, Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United (5th in 2015-16), Arsenal (2nd) and Chelsea (10th).
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Swansea will be hoping for more scenes like this in the coming season.
Arsenal’s home match with Liverpool is another intriguing contest on the opening weekend – which will be played between August 13 and 15 – as the season’s schedule is revealed.
Sunderland spent all of last season playing catch-up on their Premier League peers after a awful start saw them register just three points from the opening nine games. If Claudio Ranieri’s are still in the mix in April, they will have to navigate big games against Tottenham and Manchester City to stay in the hunt.
And Sam Allardyce and Co won’t have to wait long to take on Aitor Karanka’s side, with Boro on Wearside for Sunderland’s first home game of the campaign on August 20.
We may be watching football from France but Sunderland fans will be looking through the fixture list today for the domestic season.
However, with building work on Anfield’s new Main Stand unlikely to be completed until mid-August, the club would ideally want their first two games to be played away from the stadium in order to allow the construction work to be finished.
The festive period sees games on Boxing Day and New Years Eve, with Guardiola spending his first Christmas Day in England preparing for a December 26 clash at Hull.
The hard opening five games are effectively repeated from the beginning of February – when the reds will again face the three big London sides as well as Leicester in the space of 5 games.
Here, courtesy of Opta, we look at some of the best stats for the opening day. Four other teams are also on the road in these three rounds, Stoke City, Tottenham, West Brom and West Ham.
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And Tottenham’s opponent will be Ronald Koeman’s Everton. Both have failed to win any of their last six opening-day fixtures and have only triumphed in two of their last 10.
