The Unai Emery era will start one day later than planned

No sport is as subject to the whims of its televisual overlords as is Premier League soccer. in June, teams put out a fixture list that is about 65% suggestion and 35% fact, but once the TV people get their mitts on things, anything goes. It’s usually just times that get changed, but in some cases matches shift days as well. Sometimes, of course, there’s a valid reason for such a switch - a team makes an unexpected cup run, or weather intervenes, or whatever.

But sometimes, TV just moves fixtures because they want to, which is the case with Arsenal’s first league fixture this coming season. The home game against defending champs Manchester City has been moved from Saturday, August 11 to Sunday, August 12 at 4PM BT. The following week’s game away at Chelsea has moved kickoff time, from 3PM BT to 5.30, and two games in September have shifted from Saturday to Sunday as well.

I’ve long since given up raging against these sorts of changes; they’re just a fact of the game now, and at least in this instance they’ve given people plenty of time to change travel arrangements if need be. It’s still mildly irritating that TV companies get to dictate game schedules, but that is the world in which we live, so.