There may have been a few international games recently, but I am sure that most of us Arsenal fans cannot wait for the Gunners to get back into action. Even with the Copa America, the Women’s World Cup and the Euro under 21 tournament, life for a football fan is a bit of a sad place right now.
So the release of the Premier League fixtures for next season was a welcome bit of a taster for the serious action ahead of us. We still have the changes in ours and our rival clubs’ playing staff to be sorted out in the summer transfer window and the draw for the Champions League groups could play a big part, as can any number of things like injury problems.
Even so, you can look at our league fixtures and identify potentially easy and hard parts of the season. For me, it looks as though January could be crucial for Arsenal. Assuming we are top or at least close to the top by then, the festive fixtures always play a big role in the destination of the BPL trophy and ours include the visit of Man City and the trip to Southampton, but look at January.
We kick off 2016 with a nice home tie with Newcastle but then we head to Liverpool before our bogey game away to Stoke. After that Jose Mourinho brings Chelsea to the Emirates and these three games look like they could make or break our title challenge.
Do you think we will need to have built a gap at the top by then?