Coventry City owner Doug King has suggested some Sky Blues fans will be a little underwhelmed at facing Hull City in their opening home game back in the Premier League.
The Sky Blues kick off their first campaign back after 25 years away with a trip to champions Arsenal on Friday, August 21, but host the Tigers at the CBS Arena on the following weekend.
City, who are also at home on the first Saturday of the new season, will take on Manchester United, before their showdown with Frank Lampard’s men at the CBS Arena a week later as both newly promoted sides look to get points on the board early.
Sergej Jakirovic’s first game in English football was in Coventry last August when his new-look Tigers outfit earned a 0-0 draw on the opening day of the Championship season, with both clubs going full circle to now face each other in the top flight for the first time in their proud histories.
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“What can you say? I thought it’d be a big one. Champions against champions – what a way to start it! I think everybody’s excited. There was a little bit of nervous tension around, it went quiet afterwards, but we’ve got to play everybody twice and we’re excited to start it at the home of Arsenal,” King told Sky Sports.
“We played them in our first game last year, but we always like Hull coming here. We’ve got ourselves ready, and we’ll need our home support hugely this year. We saw what Sunderland did at home, and that’s what we want to make it. We had a great home support in the Championship-winning season, and I think we’ll need it even more in the Premier League.
“We haven’t been here in a long time, never in this stadium. We’re not intimidated by it, we’re not daunted by it, we want to give it a proper play. We feel we belong there. We got there as champions. That’s how the team think about it.
“Away game at Arsenal, there won’t be too many that can get to that one, Hull at home, they’ll probably be going ‘Gee, Hull at home again’ – no disrespect to Hull, of course, but they had it last year. Our season ticket sales have been going great guns. People are really, really excited. It’s just going to build and build and build.”
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