Manchester City will learn their Premier League fixtures for 2022/23 on Thursday, but history suggests the season will begin in a certain way.
Manchester City will have a better idea of their 2022/23 schedule when the Premier League fixtures are released at 9 a.m. on Thursday, June 16th.
The upcoming season will be different from previous seasons, owing to the need to accommodate a mid-season World Cup. The season will begin a week early on the weekend of August 6/7, with a six-week break following the 16th round of fixtures on November 12/13.
The season will then begin on Boxing Day, eight days after the World Cup final, and will conclude on May 28.
Pep Guardiola will be hoping for a gentle start to the season, but if recent history has taught us anything, it’s that the most important thing is how you finish, not how you start.
Looking back at the last three seasons, it’s clear that City isn’t going to run away with the league in the first few months. City took 13 points from their first six games in 2019/20 – 18 points were available – that tally fell to 11 in 2020/21 before rising back to 13 in 2021/22. Guardiola’s team clearly takes its time moving up through the gears.
City won the Premier League in both 2020/21 and 2021/22, but it took the Blues several months to reach the pinnacle in both seasons. The city had a poor start to the previous season, earning only 20 points out of a possible 36, and it took them until the end of January 2021 to reach the top of the table. However, they did not relinquish first place after that.
This season’s story was similar. After a 0-2 home defeat to Crystal Palace dropped the defending champions to fifth place with 20 points from ten games, and Guardiola’s side went on a winning streak that saw them leapfrog Chelsea and Liverpool to first place in mid-December. Again, City didn’t let go from that point on, even if things did get a little too close to comfort.
City started poorly in 2019/20, but the difference was that they did not recover and finished the season 18 points behind champions Liverpool. City went unbeaten in their first four games, beginning with a 5-0 thrashing of West Ham, but losses to Norwich, Wolves, and Liverpool soon followed.
In terms of individual opponents, City may want to avoid Tottenham Hotspur in their first six games. The Blues faced them in the first games of both the 2019/20 and 2021/22 seasons, drawing 2-2 at the Etihad in the second game of the former and losing 0-2 in London in the latter. City also lost 0-2 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in their eighth match of the 2020/21 season.
A ‘leaked’ fixture schedule suggests that City may have a difficult start, but they actually benefited from it last season. City faced back-to-back trips to Chelsea and Liverpool at the end of September 2021, but won in London and drew 2-2 at Anfield, despite arguably winning both. Taking points from those difficult trips early in the season set City up for a 12-game winning streak later in the season, which Liverpool could not break.
The upshot is that City doesn’t start seasons well, regardless of how difficult the schedule appears to be. However, as evidenced by their exploits in September, they are capable of dealing with difficult stretches if necessary.
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