NFR: The Manchester United Paranoia strikes again

[Logicalman]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23710359

Man Utd: David Moyes criticises Premier League fixture list

Manchester United manager David Moyes says he finds his club's start to the new season "hard to believe".
Among their first five Premier League games, the champions host Chelsea and Manchester City and Liverpool away.

Moyes said: "I find it hard to believe that's the way the balls came out of the bag, that's for sure."
The Premier League responded by saying: "We have absolutely assured him the process is random and above board. He has accepted those assurances."
A league spokesman also confirmed that Moyes had put his concerns to them directly.
However earlier on Thursday the Scotsman said: "I think it's the hardest start for 20 years that Manchester United have had.
"I hope it's not because Manchester United won the league quite comfortably last year [that] the fixtures have been made much more difficult."
Moyes officially took over from Sir Alex Ferguson, who retired after 26 trophy-laden years in charge, on 1 July. The former Everton boss saw his new side win the Charity Shield with a 2-0 victory against Wigan last week. They start their Premier League campaign away at Swansea, before facing Chelsea, Liverpool, Crystal Palace and Manchester City.
Manchester City, who finished second last season, play two promoted clubs, Hull and Cardiff.
Chelsea, meanwhile, will face two teams who finished in the bottom half last season as well as Hull, Everton and Man Utd.

Four of Arsenal's opening five opponents finished in the bottom half last season, although they do have the derby against Tottenham. Spurs also face two promoted teams as well as Swansea and Norwich.
Meanwhile, Moyes refused to be drawn on whether Wayne Rooney, who has been the subject of two bids from Chelsea, would feature in Saturday's season-opener at Swansea.
The striker, 27, missed Sunday's Community Shield win over Wigan with a shoulder injury but was fit enough to start England's international friendly victory over Scotland on Wednesday before being replaced by match-winner Rickie Lambert.
"It was great for Wayne to get fitness and he played for 65 minutes or so, so overall I was really pleased with the outcome," said Moyes, who was at the game to watch Rooney and his club-mates Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley.
"Hopefully when I get back to Old Trafford I will be able to tell you how he is and how his fitness is so. Until I assess that I can't say any more."









.. Oh well, out with the old, and in the the new old.  And this is Villas season openers: Arsenal (A), Chelsea (A), Liverpool (H) - can't wait for Paul Lambert to start moaning and accusing the FA of bias.

[BarryP]

Sounds  like he was trying out one of Sir Alex's scripts.

[Count Berbatov]

He'd rather we play easier oppositions. Perhaps it's just bad luck, but can't deny City and Chelsea potentially get a jump start ahead of us. I too find it hard to believe that's been manipulated, but David is afraid for the reaction if we get a couple of bad results in a row. Again, easy to understand him, but I am not a fan of such statements never the less.

[Rupert]

CB, I confess that, over the seasons, it has been a mystery to me how the likes of yourselves and your good friends from across the city have often had home games against newly promoted teams as their season opener (our first ever Premiership game was at Old Trafford), while the likes of us rarely do. Even then, the FA tend to kick us immediately afterwards. Last season, for example, we actually had a home game against Norwich as our opener, spanked them 5-0, briefly went to the top of the table, then went away to your lot the following weekend.

Welcome to our world.

[RaySmith]

He doesn't really believe the fixtures are rigged does he? :005:

[jmh]

What difference does it make?  You have to play everybody sometime.

[stokesy]

and there last 8 games
away west ham
home villa
away Newcastle
home hull
away everton
home Norwich
home sunderland
away Southampton
bloody fix

[Jimpav]

I'm sure it's in the job description. Snap up smaller clubs best players, ship your cast offs out to cronies and question any decision that goes against you - wrong or right.

[epsomraver]

He'd rather we play easier oppositions. Perhaps it's just bad luck, but can't deny City and Chelsea potentially get a jump start ahead of us. I too find it hard to believe that's been manipulated, but David is afraid for the reaction if we get a couple of bad results in a row. Again, easy to understand him, but I am not a fan of such statements never the less.

Not really interested what "we" think, this is a Fulham message board, I am sure there are thousands of boards for all the rest of the armchair manure fans to go on and leave this one alone, this is Peta from scouseland all over again

[Enter the Frei]

CB, I confess that, over the seasons, it has been a mystery to me how the likes of yourselves and your good friends from across the city have often had home games against newly promoted teams as their season opener (our first ever Premiership game was at Old Trafford), while the likes of us rarely do. Even then, the FA tend to kick us immediately afterwards. Last season, for example, we actually had a home game against Norwich as our opener, spanked them 5-0, briefly went to the top of the table, then went away to your lot the following weekend.

Welcome to our world.

You're not allowed any so called " big games " on the first weekend of the season, so I think that means no derbies and none of what was effectively last years top 7 playing each other.

The likelihood is at least one of the big teams will come up against a newly promoted side to be honest.

[Logicalman]

An interesting reply from the FA was that the balls are random. I am not aware of how this is done. I would guess the fixtures are calculated in advance, using numbers for the teams, and then the numbers are drawn out and assigned to teams. Anyone got any idea as to how all this actually works?

[Rupert]

CB, I confess that, over the seasons, it has been a mystery to me how the likes of yourselves and your good friends from across the city have often had home games against newly promoted teams as their season opener (our first ever Premiership game was at Old Trafford), while the likes of us rarely do. Even then, the FA tend to kick us immediately afterwards. Last season, for example, we actually had a home game against Norwich as our opener, spanked them 5-0, briefly went to the top of the table, then went away to your lot the following weekend.

Welcome to our world.

You're not allowed any so called " big games " on the first weekend of the season, so I think that means no derbies and none of what was effectively last years top 7 playing each other.

The likelihood is at least one of the big teams will come up against a newly promoted side to be honest.

I appreciate that, but the point is the Manchester teams usually seem to get a home game against a newly promoted team.

[Jimpav]

An interesting reply from the FA was that the balls are random. I am not aware of how this is done. I would guess the fixtures are calculated in advance, using numbers for the teams, and then the numbers are drawn out and assigned to teams. Anyone got any idea as to how all this actually works?

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/jun/15/fixtures-premier-league-football-league-compiled


The football fixtures will be announced on Wednesday and the story behind the process is a laborious and complicated one.

The final home game for Sir Alex Ferguson with his title-winning Manchester United players. What will the fixture list hold for his successor David Moyes? Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian
James Riach   View all 129 comments
When the Premier League and Football League fixtures for 2013-14 are announced at 9am on Wednesday, spare a thought for the individuals involved in compiling the season's schedule.

"I don't think people realise what goes into it," says the Football League fixtures officer, Paul Snellgrove. "They think names go into a hat and it's almost like a draw. Because it's so difficult to explain it's hard to keep people's attention."

A laborious process that begins four years ahead of each season, when Fifa and Uefa set out their international schedules, goes through a raft of complex stages before the final fixture list is signed off.

Presumably those trusted with deciding when supporters must travel the length of the country on a cold midweek night, or with a blasting hangover on New Year's Day, then go and shelter in a dark room for a long, long time.

Glenn Thompson of the IT company Atos Origin is the man responsible for inputting all the data into the famed "fixtures computer", but before he does so the Football League, Premier League, Football Association and the Football Supporters' Federation undergo a series of discussions alongside the clubs, starting when a draft schedule is first proposed in November of the previous year.

Most fans understand that each club is paired with another and their fixtures will usually correspond. For example, when Manchester United play a home match, Manchester City play away. The same rules apply for Everton and Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham and other neighbouring teams.

It is easier to pair clubs if they are in the same division, with Swansea City and Cardiff City reunited in that respect next season, and the fixture organisers work closely with police forces across England and Wales to ensure matchdays do not stretch resources too thin.

There are fixture compilation rules, such as that over a course of five matches a club must have no more than three home or away games. If a team plays at home on Boxing Day it must travel on New Year's Day and vice versa.

Organisers try to schedule midweek matches in "good weather periods" and attempt to give clubs a home match either before of after an FA Cup tie, so as to avoid three successive away games and tricky financial situations for lower-league sides.

However, things can easily become complicated and changing one fixture has a series of knock-on effects to other games on the calendar. Policing, transport and requests from clubs make scheduling an incredibly detailed and tedious task.

For example, Greater Manchester police has to consider eight clubs on their patch each weekend. Four must play home and four away, yet there is also the fact that Bury request that they play home games when Manchester United are not in action so as to boost their attendance.

GMP also has to avoid potentially fiery fixtures when events such as the Conservative Party conference and Gay Pride weekend are in town. The Premier League and Football League also try to avoid big games on the opening day of the season and on occasions such as Boxing Day and New Year's Day.

The draft schedule is tweaked and sent out to all clubs in March, with a form asking them to respond with any specific requests. "It's very rare that we get a blank form back," admits Snellgrove, but not all can be accommodated - Birmingham City asked if they could have a home game next season on 19 April to celebrate Trevor Francis's birthday but the League could sadly not oblige, although the schedule does take into consideration the Nottingham Goose Fair and the Shrewsbury Flower Show.

"Glenn does a lot of prep work manually and will feed it into the computer," says Snellgrove. "Each club gets a space on a grid which dictates their home and away sequence. He splits the season into sections, mini-leagues, the season is basically a set of 10 mini-leagues and they will reverse out at some stage. Each club within that mini league gets either a positive or negative polarity and that will dictate their order of home and away games.

"There are clash dates, which is where in order to re-mix the home and away clubs, to make sure everyone plays each other, Glenn has to make them clash. Sometimes they'll both be away which is fine, sometimes they'll both be at home and we recognise this can be a problem so we make early contact with the clubs. Nine times out of 10 the police will move one to a Sunday or a Friday night, now and again they'll do them on the same day."

The process will be completed over the weekend when Thompson, Snellgrove and others involved put the finishing touches to the schedule. Soon, though, it will be time to start on next season.

[jarv]

I don't believe the fixtures are random. Reason, I make trips back to UK every year. It seems, each year we are playing the same team as last year at the same time. Examples, I had to endure Bolton 2 years in a row and when they went down, the misery of watching Birmingham was the replacement fixture as an option..late November, early December is always my timeframe.

This year does look better however, back to back home games, spurs and villa. Looking forward to that.

If it was random, how come the xmas fixtures are all local.?