Fixture Ambivalence

With fans starved of real football coverage over the summer, assuming that the confederations cup doesnt count, attempts are made to try and focus on next season. Nothing helps this process more than the release of the fixture list for the forthcoming season. But does it really offer anything at all?

For as long as Ipswich are stuck in the Championship, the most likely source of interest in the fixture list has been the confirmation of when we are going to beat Norwich again.

Of course, whilst the delight at Norwichs relegation was reflected around the stadium after the final home game of the season, its result is that it is one fixture which is not present in this season listings.

With that, attention presumably fixates upon when embarrassed Newcastle United will find themselves at Portman Road and how long Town fans have to wait before a weekend trip to Newcastle.

Beyond that, there isnt much else.

In previous years, Ive gone through the process of looking at the fixtures for the first month or so, followed by the fixtures for the last month or so, with a view to trying to assess whether we will have the important start and finish to the season that any successful club ultimately requires.

However, as with last year, it simply highlights the point that the Championship is a very competitive and very unpredictable league. As much as Ipswich fans can have genuine optimism that last seasons distinctly average performance can be replaced with a promotion winning one, so too can many other teams.

Similarly, teams who might have previously had one eye on automatic promotion can now look around at the shells of once established clubs who didnt manage to achieve what they expected and found life much harder than anticipated.

All of this means that looking at the fixture list reveals very very little. Our last six games of the season give a perfect example. It would be very easy to presume that Newcastle, Reading and Sheffield United will all be strong teams next season. However, there is a very good chance that the latter two will be extremely weakened as a result of wage cutting exercises following failure to win promotion. Similarly, Newcastle can look at the examples of Leeds, Southampton and Charlton and feel suitably wary. By contrast, whilst Doncaster, Nottingham Forest and Derby would appear to be weaker fixtures on paper, Doncasters performances last season would suggest there is no reason they cannot follow Burnleys blueprint for promotion. The other two have spent years being financially mismanaged, but have both steadied the ship under new management and, given the size of both clubs, its inconceivable to presume they wont become strong contenders again.

This kind of two-way assesment can be made across the league. Who would have thought Swansea would achieve promotion and be so strong the following season? Yet, who would predict that they can maintain it? Having been written off once, the temptation is there not to make the same mistake twice, but then the example of Bristol City demonstrates that a slide is possible, particularly under new management. What of Leicester? Given the manner of their promotion, they could reasonably expect to push up the table next season, in similar fashion to the aforementioned two teams. Yet, it would be quite realistic to predict a Nottingham Forest style steady and hesitant return to the Championship.

The fixture list inevitably draws much interest and excitement. But using it to try and predict fault points in the season is almost impossible these days, rendering it largely irrelevant until the season itself is actually underway.