With Arsenal being in the Play-Offs on Tuesday I thought I'd take a look at our fixture list for the Group Stages (already on our Fixture List - thanks Lads) and noticed that every single one (all 6 games) has us away from home the following weekend. Obviously, this also means that the Rags are at home for every game following CL which I find quite bizarre. How can the fixture list be set-up in such away?
Anyway, I thought I'd look a little deeper and see what games we have compared to them and noticed that we have difficult games against the Rags, Chelsea (Chelsea get 3 home, 3 away btw) and Liverpool, the others being Fulham, QPR and Blackburn. The Rags have 2 tough home games against us and Chelsea and the rest are low to mid-table clubs. It then gets a bit easier if we get to the knock-out rounds where we get a mixed bag through the stages but the Rags have only got one hard game against Chelsea again prior to the semi-final.
Now, I'm not paranoid or anything and I'm wondering whether the Rags get a choice of games because of their Final appearance or is this just a random draw? All those away fixtures could seriously hamper our Premier League form and I can't see any reason that we'd ask for these type of fixtures?
I'm looking forward to seeing us play at home tomorrow for the first game, the first time in 4 or 5 years isn't it, but I just wonder if it was athe Rags who bagsied it in return for the other home draws?