Premier League festive fixtures could swing title race

With the focus on international matches at the moment the Premier League have released the Christmas and New Year TV fixture times.

This is always a controversial time in the Premier League season. On many occasions there have been criticisms of the fixture pile-up and apparent inconsistency in who plays when at this time of year.

And its been claimed it hurts English teams chances in the European competitions. Although there is little real evidence of that as Manchester United winning the Europa League final in 2017 and Liverpool reaching the Champions League final last season underlined.

The Christmas and New Year period has always traditionally been a busy time of the season in English football.

Today the influence of TV money makes it even more important as there are so many changes to game times to accommodate the demands of the broadcasters for live matches during the holidays.

Last season Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola claimed City had suffered  because of these fixture times and how often they were playing.

As it happened, it didn’t of course make much difference as City went on to win the Premier League title breaking a host of records in doing so.

But Guardiola won’t be too happy to see how the fixtures are falling this festive period either. City will have one less day’s rest before they face Liverpool in the biggest festive Premier League game on 3rd January.

Liverpool are shaping up to be City’s strongest challengers in the title race this season, as many pundits expected, so that might raise eyebrows at the Etihad.

Especially when the full fixture list is considered and it shows Liverpool have the most time off between games of any Premier League team. After playing Wolverhampton Wanderers on the 21st December, the Reds play only once more, on the 29th, before that big clash with City.

And City are travelling to play away from home in two matches before the home game against Liverpool.

However City have little to complain about compared to some of the sides battling relegation. Guardiola’s team are playing a day earlier than Liverpool but they have the second most time off overall.

Fulham and Cardiff City, both struggling this season, have amongst the least time off in between games. Not only do these teams have much less time to recover but they also don’t possess the big squads of the two leading clubs.

The one club competing for a top four place (or even perhaps the Premier League title), which might have a genuine gripe about these festive game times, is Tottenham.

Spurs play twice in four days starting with a game against Everton, who incidentally have the most difficult fixture list of all. Tottenham then play again three days later. This might prove quite telling given their failure to recruit any new players in the summer.

It’s always difficult to say if these Christmas and New Year fixtures have any real fundamental impact on how the race for the title or the battle to avoid relegation, actually turns out.

But it does seem that the two main Premier League title contenders have been granted the most favourable timetable.

Liverpool in particular have got a very agreeable set of games nicely spaced out between playing Wolves at Molineux and then two home games against Newcastle United and then Arsenal at Anfield. They then have another four days until they play City.

This gives Liverpool the best chance to recover and overcome minor injuries, thus providing them with an advantage and possibly helping them pick up the most points during this period.

So could this festive timetable prove a key factor in the eventual destination of the title?