Boxing Day football in the Premier League is perhaps the best day in the entire domestic footballing calendar.
However, it’s more often than not a nightmare for us in more ways than one: a logistical pain for our travelling supporters, and we also hold the record for most defeats suffered on Boxing Day in English league history!
But things look to have changed under Eddie Howe: we’ve recorded two wins, one draw and one defeat in the four years since he became manager, and we’ll be quietly confident of making it a third when we go to Old Trafford once again at the end of December.
However, when we’re actually due to play the game against Manchester United is still yet to be decided, as the Premier League looks set to stray away from its Boxing Day tradition…
Boxing Day tradition scrapped?
According to The Mail’s Mike Keegan, the Premier League is set to announce that just ONE game will take place on December 26th this season, scrapping the tradition of a packed Boxing Day schedule up and down the country.
Because Boxing Day takes place on a Friday this year, the Premier League reportedly wouldn’t be able to meet its quota of delivering 33 weekend games to broadcasters, so the bulk of games will instead be played across the 27-29th of December as an alternative.
Keegan also points to the increase in the number of midweek games scheduled this season, and the change in FA Cup scheduling that games are only played on the weekend, as further reason as to why the Premier League has abandoned plans for most teams to play on Boxing Day.
There’s also no clear idea as to who will be contesting the sole game on Friday night: our trip to Old Trafford was always pencilled in as a 3pm kickoff on the 27th, but the deadline for festive fixtures to be confirmed happened midway through October, with no communication confirming one thing or another.
Once again, it’s not good enough that we are yet to hear an announcement on these plans, with late changes to Newcastle’s potential Boxing Day away trip likely to cause chaos for fans keen to make the trip.
It sums up modern day football that we see end of season friendlies played on the other side of the world and a Club World Cup forced in, but FA Cup replays are scrapped alongside the Boxing Day tradition.
A repeat from last season needed
It’s still early days in this season’s Premier League, but only now do things finally look like they’re starting to click on the pitch for us.
But last season, our away game against the Red Devils was one of the easiest fixtures we played all season, as we picked up a comfortable 2-0 win thanks to goals from Joelinton and Alexander Isak.
That win was the fourth of a six game win streak over December and January that proved immensely valuable in our eventual qualification for the Champions League.
Manchester United look to have improved on where they were in December last year, but are still fragile and very beatable: getting all three points once again at Old Trafford will be huge for our Champions League ambitions in a month that already includes league games against Spurs, Chelsea and Sunderland amongst others.
