Fword begin away to Arsenal on 12th August, so that almost certainly means we'd be at home that weekend. EFL usually had us consistently reversed from Fword home and away with very rare exceptions, seemed to be a lot more clashes in the NL.
So the poetic Swindon away opener is still a possibility.
Edit: To clarify, we start our season on 5th August, a week earlier than the PL.
Last edited by upthemaggies; 15-06-2023 at 11:14 AM.
Yep, an absolute stinker of an opening for them. Never good to play teams that have just come up near the start of the season either, and they've got Sheff Utd as their first home game. Hopefully they'll be rock bottom or there abouts from day 1.
I never buy into the "Everybody has to play everybody twice so it makes no difference" argument. If you have a tough set of opening fixtures it's going to make things much harder than having a relatively easy August/September where you can get a foothold and build belief and confidence rather than playing catch-up. You can also get lucky playing a bunch of teams that are about to sack managers as opposed to playing teams who've just replaced, or teams on a bad run of form or vice versa. The way the fixtures come out has a very big say in how you fair.
Luton couldn't have asked for better really. Definitely an opportunity for them to get points on the board before October.
Don't EFL go Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday for the first three normally? In that case, it would be a home game. Also heard apparently the EFL try and make promotion teams play at home first game
The first midweek is usually either round 1 of the League Cup or the first group game of the Pizza cup.
I've got a strong feeling we're going to end up playing a massive club in the League Cup this season after being out of the loop for so long. So we'll probably get Bradford City.
Forest were massively helped last season by playing Arsenal so late when the League was pretty much gone, also they played Aston Villa just before they sacked Gerrard and Leeds just before they sacked that Marsh fella.