What a crock. The one time the FA give us an opening day home fixture they give us Liverpool. Man Utd get a newly promoted side at OT. Chelsea get Hull at Stamford Bridge. We get Liverpool. Still, we managed to ride our luck last time out at WHL and steal all three points, so hopefully a balanced confident side should be able to compete. We hope. I'm only really complaining in jest. I'm grateful for it. We all at Tottenham would like to thank you (the FA) for the privilege. At least Arsenal have been sent up to Everton for their opener. It's a minor miracle. But alas one that is dashed when you glance at the scums first 5 home games. That pesky fixture list mainframe does it again!
Obviously I can't post the the list in it's entirety or in part here because of intellectual copyright reasons (ridiculous) but I'm sure you won't have trouble finding it on a site that can afford a license. Nice little earner that for the bigwigs at Soho Square.
Only games I'm interested in at the moment are the opening eight for the simple fact that I challenge Harry Redknapp to avoid a repeat of the Ramos collapse of last season. Two Points Eight Games© must never be repeated. Never, ever. And here's the super-eight that will have many sweating through the summer nights in anticipation for the big kick-off:
Home - Scousers (Elite Four)
Away - Tigers (Almost got relegated)
Away - Spammers
Home - Brummies (Newly Promoted)
Home - Champions (Elite Four)
Away - Russians (Elite Four)
Home - Suicide Squad (Newly Promoted)
Away - Megson's lot
So, we've got ourselves three of the top four sides in our opening eight games. Does David Dein still have security access to the FA Headquarters? The voice in my head is telling me something about us doing pretty well against the 'big' teams last term out. So maybe the games we should be more concerned about are the ones against Hull, West Ham, Birmingham, Burnley and Bolton - one side almost went down and two have just come up. If we have any true intention to push forward with intent then we need to be ruthless. Absolutely no bloody fuck ups.
Prediction time:
Lane - Scousers - D - 1 point
Away - Tigers - W - 3 points
Away - Spammers - W - 3 points
Lane - Brummies - W - 3 points
Lane - Champions - L - 0 point
Away - Russians - D - 1 point
Lane - Suicide Squad - W - 3 points
Away - Megson's lot - D - 1 points
15 Points, Eight Games. Lap that up Mr Ramos (I've had rum for breakfast). My prediction is based on the assumption that we start confidently, something we rarely do because of some in-built mental mechanism that automatically switches off the whole Spurs collective rendering them as soft as a lemon mousse (which ironically is what our new home kit will look like).
Worst (acceptable) case scenario is Chelsea dick us away from home and Bolton beat us (which they always manage to do). That would give us: 13 points. But it's all just impossible to really know at this point. Like last year I will not be getting carried away if we thrash Barcelona at Wembley (like we did to Roma at WHL).
Harry Redknapp has to buck the trend. It's that simple. No more believing the hype. It's time to create hype off the back of hard work, determination and spirit. We would like something back in the way of hope. It's been a while since the giddy heights of 2006.
As for the back end of the season? We've got Arsenal and Chelsea at the Lane and then Man Utd away followed by Bolton back home and finally Burnley away.
Brutal finish to go with the tricky start.
COYS.