14th March 2005: Planning your
life around the fixture list has become increasingly difficult this
season. After the home game against Everton was switched to the Sunday
for coverage on Sky TV and the Chelsea game was moved twice, three
more fixture changes have been announced in the last few days.
First of all, the final day of the Premiership season has all been
moved to the Sunday, presumably for Sky to select the game they want
to cover, and then today, Sky have also decided to cover Albion's
home game with Arsenal switching the game from the Saturday to Bank
Holiday Monday 2nd May. And then of course, with Blackburn reaching
the FA Cup semi-final, the home game against them will now have to
be moved.
Although the Blackburn game is still to be finalised, it seems sure
to mean that Albion will not have another Saturday home game this
season. This statistic is even more remarkable given that Albion will
have had only one Saturday league game since the turn of the year,
and that was at 5.15pm on 22nd January; their only home fixture at
3pm on a Saturday in 2005 was the cup tie with Tottenham.
As a traditionalist, I feel bound to complain that Albion's last "traditional"
home league fixture at 3pm on a Saturday of this season will prove
to have been on 11th December 2004, but I won't shout too loud. Albion
have not yet won a game this season that kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday,
so it could be a good omen.
However, it looks like leaving us with only one home game in the next
six. With a game at Spurs already scheduled for mid-week on 20th April,
the Rovers game is unlikely to be scheduled until 27th April as they
are unlikely to want to play the week before their semi-final. That
means that our away form needs to improve dramatically if we are to
stay in touch, but if we can, three out of our last four at home should
give us an edge.
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