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Seasons Fixtures, how they are compiled

Rackybear

You Must Respect Ma Authowita!
Aug 10, 2008
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Nice one, at least this will help explain why we are away from home more often then not on the first day of the season :up:
 

Sauniere

Grand Master of the Knights of the Fat Fanny
Oct 28, 2004
3,903
690
Nice one, at least this will help explain why we are away from home more often then not on the first day of the season :up:

Yes, it looks like there's a lot more variables to it than you could possibly imagine
 

cider spurs

Well-Known Member
Jul 5, 2016
9,399
23,731
Thought I'd add a little here as it has been mentioned that we seem to get drawn away more often than not in our season opening fixture.


Talksport

Thursday 18 June 2015

Were you left bemoaning a tough run of games at the start of the season? Or at the end of it, maybe? While all the time having to accept the fact 'that's how the computer generated the fixtures'.

Well, think again.

talkSPORT can reveal the real machinations behind the process, following an interview with Glenn Thompson, who works for Atos, the IT company in charge of compiling the fixtures.

He joined the Sports Bar on Wednesday to explain how the process actually works, and it makes for very intetesting reading...

On a lack of Premier League Boxing Day derbies in the coming season:"You will find occasional local derbies are on Boxing Day. One of the things the clubs submit, along with their data requests, is the clubs they don’t wish to play on Boxing Day. You will get a lot of clubs who say they don't want to play their local rivals on Boxing Day. There are a lot of reasons for that. Clubs will always get a bumper crowd on Boxing Day, no matter who they play, so they want the fixture on another Saturday to guarantee high revenue gates. It might be that, if they play their local derby and it's a high category game, it will require a lot of police and, as it’s a bank holiday, it will incur additional police charges. The police may ask for certain fixtures not to be played on Boxing Day as well."

On West Ham's final match of the season not being at Upton Park: "West Ham requested to be home on the penultimate weekend." (Presumably to give them an extra week to prepare for their move to the Olympic Stadium)

On Sky and BT SPORT's influence on the fixtures: "TV companies don't have any real influence at all. They don't say I want fixture X on a certain day, they never have."

On Liverpool's tough start to the season: "I did spot that Liverpool's big matches in the first half of the season were away, and home in the second half. It’s swings and roundabouts, though. If it had happened for two or three years then I would have said, 'oh look, it's occurred again, we can't have that'. It's a case of looking from one year to the next. Manchester United had it one year, Liverpool have got it this year. Norwich had a bad run one year, Bournemouth's run at the end of the season is not great. Most clubs, if you look at it, have a run of a certain number of games at some point in the season which they would like to have spread out."


I find the comment about Liverpool's big matches being away in first half of season interesting. Seems to suggest if it happened 2-3 times in a row it would be changed.

So whilst many deciding factors help generate the fixtures, it does appear that detrimental repetitions can be looked at and changed.

Maybe constant away fixture on opening day falls into this bracket.
 
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