Hull City owner Acun Ilicali will be keenly watching Friday morning’s big reveal of the Premier League fixtures to find how the Tigers’ first season back in the top-flight looks.
Ilicali places great importance on the makeup of the fixture list, and has declared that his wish would be to start at the MKM Stadium against one of either Coventry City or Ipswich Town, the two other clubs who joined City in winning promotion from the Championship.
Last term, the Tigers began at the Sky Blues before hosting Oxford United, and he believes the way City‘s fixture list came out was a big help to Sergej Jakirovic’s side.
This season, Ilicali is keen to avoid being given any of the big boys early on, to allow his side to generate some momentum and early confidence in their bid to have a strong opening.
“Last year, when I looked at the fixtures, I said to everybody, ‘This is the best fixture list I’ve ever seen in these four years.’ If you ask me why, the fixtures started with medium difficulty, then light, very light, and then went to very hard,” the Turkish businessman tells Hull Live as he explains his thought process.
“With the medium fixtures, if you can survive, then you will just kill the light part, then go with the hard part with the biggest advantage, and it happened completely like I was assuming.
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“I think how the fixtures are set up is so important. This time I want medium-end, so medium starts, then light, hard and then medium. That’s what I would prefer, and when I talk about those different levels of fixtures, everybody will understand what I mean. My four quarters, if you like, are medium, light, hard and medium.”
“I would say I’d like to start with a newly promoted team home, so Coventry City or Ipswich Town at home is what I would like, but at this level, every game will be hard, of course.”
City will not be arriving in the Premier League to play the role of one-stop tourists, but Ilicali is relishing the Tigers’ trip to Old Trafford to take on Manchester United, and the visit of champions Arsenal to the MKM Stadium is one he’s looking forward to most on home soil.
“I’m most excited about seeing us play at Old Trafford, and for the visiting team, I would go with Arsenal because it would be an honour to host the Premier League champions as our guests in a league game,” added the Tigers’ owner.
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