By Frank Dalleres
The hangovers from Manchester City’s treble celebrations may barely have subsided (hello, Jack Grealish) but the 2023-24 Premier League fixtures have already been released.
Here, City A.M. picks out five talking points from next season’s schedule – including some important dates for the diary of top-flight football fans.
Man City’s early Kompany reunion
The new Premier League campaign kicks off on Friday 11 August with an intriguing fixture between champions Manchester City and promoted Burnley.
Title-winning former City captain Vincent Kompany and Burnley took the second tier by storm last year and have an early chance to show they can cut it in the top flight against the best in the division.
Elsewhere on the opening Premier League weekend, Arsenal host Nottingham Forest in a Saturday lunchtime kick-off and, in perhaps the match of the round, Mauricio Pochettino begins his tenure as Chelsea manager at home to Liverpool on Sunday afternoon.
Tough spells for Newcastle, City and Spurs
Newcastle United face an early test of their ability to cement a top-four place with a tough run right off the bat.
The Magpies begin at home to Aston Villa, then travel to City before hosting Liverpool and then visiting upwardly mobile Brighton before the first international break.
City’s most difficult run looks to be in March, when they face consecutive Premier League games against Manchester United, Liverpool, Brighton and Arsenal – as well as the business end of their Champions League defence.
Tottenham, meanwhile, have a nightmare sequence of fixtures against Newcastle, City, Arsenal and Liverpool that begins in mid-April.
Arsenal’s European bonus
Returning to the Champions League brings an extra workload but the fixture gods appear to have smiled on Arsenal.
The Gunners have home fixtures after every one of their six group stage games, meaning they will have an extra day to prepare and less fatigue to manage.
It’s not all good news, however, as the first two are a north London derby against neighbours Spurs and a visit from champions City.
Winter holiday
One of the consequences of last year’s winter World Cup in Qatar was that it didn’t leave room in the Premier League schedule for the now-traditional mid-season break.
But it is back for 2023-24 and will take place over the weekends of 13 and 20 January. Half of the 20 teams will have the first weekend off, with the remainder freed up for the following one so that all clubs get a full 10-14 days of downtime between league games.
Fixture amendments
The rearranging of matches for broadcast purposes at short notice has caused uproar among supporters, who can be left out of pocket if they have already booked travel and accommodation.
This season the Premier League has pledged that any fixture amendments for that reason will come with at least six weeks’ notice up to and including December and five weeks thereafter.
For the full fixture list, see here.
