You’ve probably already seen the Premiership fixtures for 2010/11 and are hopefully aware that due to a particularly anachronistic and egregious piece of copyright law, I can’t just publish the fixture list here. I’ve no intention of coughing up the £266 plus VAT for the Villa list and absolutely no intention of forking out the £3,931 plus VAT for the full list, so I’ll just pick out some highlights and intertwine the European fixtures which are not protected by copyright.

August

The opening game is at home to West Ham. Let’s hope for no repeats of last season’s opening game. On and off the pitch.

The 2 other league games in August are no easier; Newcastle away and Everton at Villa Park. We’ll also have to take care of the Europa League 4th round play off ties on the 19th and 26th.

September

There are only 3 Premiership games scheduled in September: Stoke, Bolton and Wolves. Let’s not count chickens, but, sticking with the cliches for a moment, when the sun is shining, we should be making hay.

There are 2 Europa League match days in September: 16th and 30th.

October

Tottenham, Chelsea, Sunderland and Birmingham. Yeah, let’s hope that we squeeze every point out of September because October is a tough month.

There is 1 Europa League match day in October: 21st.

November

Fulham, Blackpool, Man Utd, Blackburn and Arsenal. That’s Blackpool at home by the way.

There’s one Europa League fixture on the 4th and it may cause the Fulham game to be rescheduled.

December

Liverpool, West Brom, Wigan, Tottenham, Man City. Once again, another tough December for us and, yes, the Tottenham game is on Boxing Day at Villa Park.

The final 2 Europa League group games will be played on the 1st/2nd and 15th/16th, so that’s potentially 7 big games in the final month of 2010.

January

Chelsea, Sunderland, Birmingham and Man City.

There are no European fixtures in January, but we’ll hopefully have the FA and League Cups to contend with.

February

Man Utd, Fulham, Blackpool and Blackburn. So that’s a trip up to Blackpool in February then. Enjoy that. Of course, with the winter weather and domestic cup fixture congestion, these are the games most likely to be subject to change.

Assuming it’s relevant, the 2nd round of the Europa League will be played on 17th and 24th.

March

Although last March was the best under MON, it’s still the month from hell for Aston Villa. With Bolton and Wolves the only tabled games, there’s clearly some wiggle room being left for rescheduled fixtures.

Europa League 3rd round: 10th and 17th.

April

Everton, Newcastle, West Ham, Stoke and West Brom. We took 13 from 15 points in April of 2009/10, the same again could well be vital.

However, we didn’t have any European distractions last season, perhaps we’ll also have an eye on the Europa League quarter finals on the 7th & 14th and 1st leg of the semi finals on the 28th.

May

The 3 final Premiership games will be Wigan (H), Arsenal (A) and Liverpool (H). Wigan have been a bogey team for us of late, Arsenal are always going to be tough, but at least we finish with an easy tie! 😉

The 2nd leg of the Europa League semi final is on May 5th and the final will be in Dublin on the 18th, right between the Arsenal and Liverpool games.

Of course I’m being hopelessly optimistic including the Europa League fixtures all the way to the final, but after last year’s disappointment, I’m desperate to see some success in Europe this time out. Fulham made the final, but they were never going to be challenging for the top 4 of the Premiership. Hopefully we can do both!

I haven’t included the domestic cup fixtures here, perhaps I should, but it’s interesting to note that FA Cup final will occur before the end of the league season for the first time since 2002.