Manchester United will open the new Premier League season against Roy ‘Woy’ Hodgson’s West Bromwich Albion at the Hawthornes in what might prove to be a season of two distinct halves. Sir Alex Ferguson’s team faces a tough start to the season, with seven matches against direct title rivals before mid-February, but just one match against teams searching for Premier League glory during the run-in.
The Scot’s side will play three tough fixtures against direct rivals adjacent to Champions League groups stage matches, with Ferguson surely hoping for home European games when the draw takes place on 25 August.
The Champions League quarter and semi-finals are likely to be next to games against Fulham, Blackburn Rovers, QPR, Aston Villa and Everton. Only the match with City on 28 April 2012 at Eastlands, which backs on to the second leg of the Champions League semi-final should United make it that far, will concern Ferguson.
But it is the season’s end that will get Ferguson purring with only that City fixture likely to be against a direct rival for the Premier League title. March, April and May will bring games against likely relegation candidates including Swansea, Wigan Athletic, Blackburn, Wolverhampton Wanderers and QPR.
Rant would bring you a full fixture list but the Premier League, via the Football Data Co., insists that even not-for-profit blogs such as this site buy an annual license at the cost of several hundred pounds.
It is a tough bunch but once those are out of the way they can kick on.
Hmm, the start is average, the run in is easy, but my god…
http://www.fivecantonas.com/manchester-united-fixtures-tought-start-decent-runin/
That patch in the middle of the season is horrific. We need everyone fit and firing for that.
If the away form is as bad as it was last season then there is no “easy” run of fixtures because every away game is a monumental struggle.
If nothing changes then West Brom will beat us comfortably on the opening day, as will Bolton, Stoke, Liverpool & Everton after that
Exactly why we need a combative midfielder Sid!!! We are too easy to play against away from home.
champions of england. champions league finalists. FA Cup semi-finalists. we certainly are a rubbish team.
Course we’re not rubbish, we’re just dogshit away from home
2 of our 5 away wins required monumentally epic Juventus-style comebacks… against West Ham and Blackpool who were relegated FFS
It’s a psychological issue now… It can’t not be when you are regularly outplayed and battered by the riff raff
Without a ball mover to compliment Jones’ bollocks (assuming he plays in midfield), we’ll struggle against the terrifying prospect of Wolves away
how can it be psychological when this side also had the best away record in the champions league, and didnt concede even one goal away from home.
we need a new central midfield. not denying that. but read the comments above. its as if we will be struggling to beat the drop. there is just way too much negativity
Hallelujah!
I enjoy the particular slant of this forum (the abuse, the balanced viewpoint in direct contrast to some others where everything “United” is brilliant), and there’s a lot of good, well thought out opinion, some of which I agree with and some I don’t……but fuck me there’s some really negative tosh spoken as well……jesus!
“….If nothing changes then West Brom will beat us comfortably on the opening day….” – really??!
We speak as one, it would appear!
But what’s changed
We’ve lost the only cunt who shoots in Gibson, and our best passer in Scholes
So we’re left with Carrick, Fletcher & Anderson. Woeful. Jones will probably play more in defence
So how will this midfield – that faffed and failed so miserably away from home last season – allow us to dominate possession against West Brom, Sunderland, Bolton, Wolves, Birmingham etc. who outplayed us last season
And I’m not saying we’re a bad team FFS. We’ve shown its possible to win the league while being dogshit away from home, and we might well do that again next season.
But I reckon 5 away wins tops, if we go into next season with this midfield. I’ll put money on it
Erm, it’s June. The international transfer window isn’t open yet, so I’m fairly sure we’ll see someone join the midfield before the window closes. If not, then we also have a few youngsters who might get their chance this season.
Also, there is no doubt that the PL is becoming more competative. We weren’t the only team who lost to lesser opponents away. We did play poorly away, no hiding that fact, but I think we’ll see some changes in the midfield area before next season, and perhaps some better performances also?
It’s also still pretty early in the closed season tbf.
And I’m not sure I agree with your assumption that Carrick, Flecther and Anderson is ‘woeful’ as a midfield…….it’s no Scholes, Keane and Butt but still – woeful’s a tad strong.
All I’m saying is I don’t subscribe to the “we’re all fucking doomed” slant. I may be naive (quite possibly) but I’m quitely confident that by the beginning of next season we’ll be pretty nicely set up thanks very much.
If we’re not, please feel free to rain down all the “I told you so” invective you feel necessary to teach me me not to be such a soft twat in the future……..
But until then – enjoy the closed season as the most successful club in the country!
Looks like a nice fixture list for us. Our team will be more settled than the Arse, Chavs, Bitters etc., so that should give us an advantage against them in those early fixtures. But even if we drop a lot of points there, no big deal since we’re usually shit at the start of the season anyway, and at least we’ll have some of the tougher fixtures out of the way.
I don’t agree with the “we’re doomed” shit either. You and Baggio exaggerated my point… my point which is obviously the truth; that Flecher, Carrick and Anderson as a midfield trio is soul destroyingly shite
That’s not negativity, that’s the reality of the situation, and that’s what you expect from Rant
If those 3 are all we have going into next season then it’s fair to say that we’re in for more of the same away from home
As it happens I think we’ll sign someone so everything I’ve said is bollocks. But this is Rant FFS
It’s only mid June, calm down.
I don’t think we’ll sign a midfielder, fergie probably wants sneijder, he won’t get him so he’ll do what he always does and sign no one and make do with oshea plugging the gaps
oh and that other player fergie likes to use to plug any holes in the team he can’t be bothered to fill with proper signings, rooney
west brom won’t beat us but it’ll be a fucking struggle
Rather have a tough start, get it out of the way, easy last few fixtures, nothing is easy then, 20 on the way?
ffs…we need 3 world class midfielders never fucking mind 1
ffs
RAPETIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Some would see our success last year as a great achievement others as a missed opportunity! Depends whether you’re an optimist or pessimist. We went down to Shitty because our players just couldn’t keep the tempo playing a game every 3-4 days when they were playing every week or less. The ‘subs’ were just not good enough to provide back up.
The fact that we won the title shouldn’t mean that all our flaws are ‘acceptable’. The trick is to identify them and eradicate them. We lost/drew so many matches away because our midfield couldn’t be bothered to break sweat and cause we have a tendency to underestimate opponents. Whilst the other team ran their hearts out we just stroll around with our midfield spaying passes laterally and backwards for defenders to hoof forward to a lone striker!! Is this how United play? Even in the 80s we didn’t play crappy football like that.
We may have won the league but can we honestly say we’ve enjoyed United’s matches? Even winning 2 nil against Livershit we managed to switch off and nearly threw the game away! Is this United standard?
And look at the gap between us an Europe; Barcelona apart we will struggle to beat a lot of teams. And most of them are strengthening this summer.
We haven’t played United/Ferguson’s beautiful free flowing attacking football because we’ve got one of the weakest midfield in the Premiership. Now if this good enough to win the league…so be it! But it wasn’t enough to win the FA Cup or the Champions League…or is it enough to make us enjoy United play?
Yes we won all the league…but we could’ve won much more and enjoy it along the way. We’re 2 good midfielders away to achieving that…BELIEVE!!
rooney
rafa rio vidic evra
ron schweinsteiger de rossi bale
benzema welbeck
// uncleknobheadforfucksake says:
June 17, 2011 at 9:45 pm
rooney
rafa rio vidic evra
ron schweinsteiger de rossi bale
benzema welbeck //
GENIUS.
that blokes spot on, clough said it right we don’t wanna just win the league we wanna win it better, we’re an average utd side that plays crap football but has a good defence and is generally hard to beat
I’m already beginning to brace myself for disappointment come August. The early cautious optimism that came with us signing 3 players has already nearly dissipated.
Luka Modric ffs.
By the way, I don’t watch much Italian football but whenever I hear us being linked with de Rossi, I can’t help but think of 7-1. Carrick and Smith scored against that shower of shite.
Where’s Rooney?
In goal?
“Badges, to god-damned hell with badges! We have no badges. In fact, we don’t need badges. I don’t have to show you any stinking badges, you god-damned cabrón and ching’ tu madre! Come out from that shit-hole of yours. I have to speak to you.”
Good defence and formidable attacking power!
This gives us hope. It also makes the equation simple: just sort out the midfield. Fergie has a great crop coming along with 4 great prospects: Morisson, Cleverly, Pogba and Tunnicliffe- but they won’t be ready for 2 years minimum. There is a gap to bridge.
I feel a lot going behind the scene to sort this out but we’ve waited until we are desperate to do so and the laws of economics mean that we’ll pay though our noses for the world class midfielder we need be it Nasri, Modric or Sneider! All these players could’ve been bought on the cheap 2 to 3 years ago…
The American takeover has hurt our development badly; we used to be in a simply logic: spend less than you earn and keep growing the revenues. Without debt this simple formula worked well and time and again we were able to break the British transfer record. When the world crashed, the Glazer’s loan tap dried up and suddenly there was ‘no value’ on the market. (BTW you just have to love Fergie’s management of all this-he must’ve known the shit we were in and yet kept the ship afloat and even managed to win titles!!)
We are simply making up for loss time and paying the price for it.
If we get Varane and one of the 3 mentioned above we’ll have a fantastic team. And I keep saying Rooney can be the new Scholes…
Lets not kid ourselves into thinking that we will have an easy run in.
Who thought that Wolves would have been the team to have inflicted our 1st defeat in the league last season?