Championship 2022/23

[Plissken]

Opening round of fixtures

 

Friday, 29 July

Huddersfield Town v Vincent Kompany's Burnley (20:00 BST)

 

Saturday, 30 July (15:00 BST unless stated)

Blackburn Rovers v Queens Park Rangers

Blackpool v Reading

Cardiff City v Norwich City

Hull City v Bristol City

Luton Town v Birmingham City

Middlesbrough v West Bromwich Albion (17:30)

Millwall v Stoke City

Rotherham United v Swansea City

Wigan Athletic v Preston North End

 

Sunday, 31 July

Sunderland v Coventry City (12:00)

 

Monday, 1 August

Watford v Sheffield United (20:00)

 

Pause for the World Cup after Nov 12th, restart 10th December.

[Ork1927]

Surprised they've done TV games already as if Bale does sign then him and some other players in Blue  vs relgated Norwich would seems like an ideal TV game.  But glad it isn't as supposed to be going away that week-end and a Sunday or Monday night game would have been an issue.

[Plissken]

I suspect it requires a minimum amount of notice - it is only five weeks away.

 

However, it could be quite interesting for Vincent Kompany's Burnley to play their opening fixture away at Huddersfield, considering the Giants are also due to play the Warrington Wolves in the stadium at the same time.

[Naysonymous]

There is five week rolling minimum notice period for EFL fixtures to be moved for television.  I think it’s shorter in the Premier League, but remember the tears last year when Ronaldo’s second debut wasn’t on TV because (rightly) they couldn’t move the game at a weeks notice. 

[Plissken]

After the usual moaners were having a go at the tickets for the first away game of the season not going on sale at the time promised, the club tweeted out why.

 

Hopefully other clubs will follow suit for some cheap away days all round.
 

 

[Plissken]

Carlos Corberan has resigned at Huddersfield.

[Rsdio]

Can't say I blame him to be honest, obviously disappointing that the owner/s are still fucking things up but stuff like this is water off a duck's back for most Town fans at this point I think. Experts in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory at least since the time we refused to give Bill Shankly a few quid to go and buy Ron Yeats and Ian St. John.

[Plissken]

It all starts again tonight!  God knows what my lot are going to be like, but for the first time in three seasons I'm actually excited to see what happens.

[Ork1927]

No clue what is in store for Cardiff this season.

 

Morrison did get us out the mire after taking over last season, but we never looked great and he was in charge for the humiliation against Swansea.

 

We've signed loads of new players that could all potentially be good, but if they'll gel is anyone's guess or if they'll turn out to be good.  We don't really have any strikers though.

 

I think any result is possible against Norwich tomorrow - we could get hammered or we could surprise them if loads of our new players click and they will have no clue what our starting line-up will be or our tactics as I don't we know ourselves.

 

It can't be any worse than last season.

[Plissken]

Sky just flashed up that Burnley have had 70% possession in the opening 15 minutes.

 

[davidcotton]

2 hours ago, Plissken said:

Sky just flashed up that Burnley have had 70% possession in the opening 15 minutes.

 

Stop the season now?

[Angles Morts]

Did anyone watch the match last night? Would be interested to see how Jack Rudoni fared when he came on for Huddersfield. I hope the lad goes far.

[GaryC]

We probably need to sign a pacy striker as we could have paid for missing chances but that would have been a massive injustice. The 1st half in particular was dream football for a Burnley fan. Very early days but that was quite a memorable introduction to the Vincent Kompany era.

[davidcotton]

33 minutes ago, GaryC said:

We probably need to sign a pacy striker as we could have paid for missing chances but that would have been a massive injustice. The 1st half in particular was dream football for a Burnley fan. Very early days but that was quite a memorable introduction to the Vincent Kompany era.

Only thing I’d be worried about is if you can maintain that pace throughout the season once the injuries and suspension start to bite.  

[Plissken]

I'm not sure we could keep it up for 90 minutes, as Huddersfield came back into it second half (as they had to).  But for one match, we were in bizarro-land, in a good way.  THe sort of match where you end up with no idea whether you were actually good or was it because the opponents were bad.  (Huddersfield were beaten 5-1 at home in their opening match last season, and made it to the Playoff Final so...)

 

Still, it's the Championship and who knows?  Massively excited at being in the division, to be honest.

[Rsdio]

I didn't watch it because I totally forgot (which says it all about my relationship with football over the past couple of years to be honest*) but I did get the sense from Schofield's pre-match comments that we had very little idea of what to expect with Kompany coming in and the extent of Burnley's player turnover. It reads like we were poor and lucky to just lose by the one but I guess from a Burnley POV if you're trying to extrapolate much from it there might be a bit of an 'element of surprise' factor in the performance as well?

 

*Though I do feel a bit of interest returning despite the state of the club behind the scenes, maybe due to wanting to see Schofield do well and not just be a human shield between the fans and boardroom. He was pretty popular as a player for us for a long time, but absolutely not one you'd guess would go on to be our manager - even he commented that he had to change from being a lazy/selfish attacking midfielder mindset once he went into coaching!

[Plissken]

Got to admit, I've been stupidly excited to go to Turf Moor for the first home game of the season and I haven't felt like that for a couple of seasons at least.  New season, new manager, new everything. Six starting players making their home debuts, with several more on the bench.  So it was inevitable that the visitors would take the lead in the first five minutes, a failure to clear, a cross, a scramble and the loose ball tucked home.

 

Luton reminded me of Old Burnley, and I mean that in a good way.  Solid, organised, physical.  At one point in the first half their two banks of defenders were separated by just 20 yards.  With Josh Cullen being man-marked, Burnley struggled to break them down in the first half.  However, after they were bossed about for the first ten minutes, the home side took over.  They weren't all that great but the visitors threat faded as the half wore on.

 

At half time, I thought that we needed a more physical presence, so I had to laugh when I saw all five foot four of Manuel Benson getting ready.  Not to worry, as he proceeded to give the Luton left back an absolute pasting.  Burnley upped the tempo and another accidental assist from Ashley Barnes set up Josh Brownhill for the equaliser.  For the rest of the second half, it was constant pressure and a few good chances which illustrates the need for a striker to be brought in.

 

A draw being a fair result and its a relief that a tough test was passed.  Burnley definitely are going to be a bit lightweight and a physical side is going to cause them problems.  The defense is not that solid (though we have been utterly spoiled for the last decade in that department) and Muric is going to cause heart attacks.   Having said that, it's bloody brilliant to watch some young players allowed to go out ad player - Benson, Maatsen and Vitinho were full of running and tricks on the wings that had the crowd regularly applauding.  Dara Costelloe is settling in and shows how the youth setup was ignored by Dyche.  Ashley Barnes is still Ashley Barnes.

 

An entertaining game and not a small amount of relief that the changes are going at least be interesting and entertaining.  No idea how it will be when the clocks go back and the grind really begins, but I get the feeling that when we click, we're really going to click.

[wullie]

Q. How much football needs to be played in the season before the pitch starts to look a bit ragged and unsuitable to play on?

 

A. Absolutely none

 

 

[Naysonymous]

Yep, playing about 80 Rugby Sevens matches the previous weekend was always going to take it's toll on the grass.   Coventry's problem remains the stadium, the move away from Highfield Road was a disaster.  It's a shame because everything seems to have been caused by people fucking things up at every turn.

 

edit: ha. Just went past the stadium on the train half an hour after making this post (I hadn’t intended to but ended up taking an alternative route to work) and the whole thing is still encased in Commonwealth Games stuff.  It looks like it’s being taken down as I type but did the games have possession of the stadium all week?

[Plissken]

I assumed that after Rammstein did their gig there, they were going to re-lay the pitch.  You know, considering it had a massive amount of people and trucks driving all over it.

 

 

 

[wullie]

3 hours ago, Naysonymous said:

Yep, playing about 80 Rugby Sevens matches the previous weekend was always going to take it's toll on the grass.   Coventry's problem remains the stadium, the move away from Highfield Road was a disaster.  It's a shame because everything seems to have been caused by people fucking things up at every turn.

 

edit: ha. Just went past the stadium on the train half an hour after making this post (I hadn’t intended to but ended up taking an alternative route to work) and the whole thing is still encased in Commonwealth Games stuff.  It looks like it’s being taken down as I type but did the games have possession of the stadium all week?

 

They officially have exclusivity of the ground until the 14th still to allow them to pack everything up, which in their defence was booked a long time ago while we were ironically playing in Birmingham. They agreed to let us in early to play but I don't know if their heightened security on all their venues extended to ground staff not being allowed to tend the pitch or not. We're meant to be hosting Bristol City in the cup on Wednesday too, can't see how that's happening

[Naysonymous]

Didn’t happen then. Playing up in Burton upon Trent which is probably the best part of an hour’s drive from most parts of Coventry.  Losing 3-0 after half an hour and yep, it’s one of those games for the hardcore. 

[wullie]

While I could certainly see us another miserable trip to the Pirelli Stadium at some point, I at least thought Burton Albion would be part of it.

 

I make it five different stadiums we've played at home to Bristol City now, wonder if we're approaching some kind of unwanted record

[Naysonymous]

You should ask: 

 

 

[wullie]

We've already had Tuesday's home game vs Wigan postponed now and with another set for four days later I wouldn't be making travel plans if I were a Huddersfield fan. On the plus side our away form saw us go 2-0 up at Millwall before losing with 10 men so everything's coming up Milhouse at the moment

[Plissken]

Football must be the only sport where a team can go from averaging 30% possession and being unable to score more than one goal to averaging 70% possession and still being unable to score more than one goal.

 

Pick a thing you like to see from your team. Beautiful passing. Intelligent running.  Wingers with speed and trickery.  This Burnley team has that in spades.

 

Pick a thing that you don't like to see from your team.  Defensive mistakes. Lack of physicality. Inability to finish off the chances than they create.  This Burnley team has that in spades too.

 

There are seven new faces from the end of last season starting each match.  New players are arriving every couple of days.  We've played a relegated team, two from last years playoffs and one recent ex-Premier League team favoured to make a challenge.  The least we've had in any of those matches is 70% possession and 8 shots on target.  Is a five points a good return?  I have absolutely no idea.

 

I'm confused as all heck, but it's bloody interesting!

[Plissken]

As an example of the sheer change in just four months, I dunno if you've seen Burnley's transfer announcement videos.  The Rock, Friends, Fawlty Towers, Minions.  Four months ago, we didn't allow players on Twitter, now we're doing stuff like this.

 

 

 

(The Samuel Bastien / The Rock one is my favourite, to be honest.)

[Plissken]

First managerial casualty in the division as Michael O’Neill was potted by Stoke.

[Mike1812]

Dyche favourite to replace him

[Plissken]

Be surprised if he did.  He can do better.