The Premier League fixtures come out shortly, so we thought we’d take a look at Arsenal’s opening fixtures in recent seasons…

2. 2011/12

In 2010/11, despite being gifted an own goal by Pepe Reina, Arsenal failed to beat a team that finished sixth that season. Their performance was lacklustre and spoke of a team who had failed to prepare.

Arsenal started the game with both Marouane Chamakh and Laurent Koscielny making their Arsenal debuts. Whilst Koscielny has been an undoubted success at Arsenal, he was having to make the step up from the French second division.

Chamakh, although he impressed against Liverpool, was subsequently deemed not good enough for the Gunners. On the day, Arsenal were unable to find a winning goal, much owing to completing the match with 10 men following a red card to Laurent Koscielny (although Liverpool were also reduced in numbers following the sending off of Joe Cole).

Drawing with Liverpool away from home is not an unreasonable result but it was the beginning of a worrying trend for Arsenal as the club failed to adhere to their billing as match day favourite’s in six of the following seven opening day contests.

Since then one could suggest that Arsenal have failed to learn their lesson in the importance of preparation.

In 2011 and 2012, Arsenal failed to beat the North-East duo of Newcastle and Sunderland – as both clubs managed to keep clean sheets respectively. One of those results may be excused as Arsenal had just sold talisman Robin van Persie and were forced to give debuts to two strikers (Podolski and Giroud).

However, there is still a belief that a greater deal of preparation would have seen Arsenal get the goals they needed to win both ties. Similar to other opening day results, Arsenal were forced to complete the Newcastle match with 10 men after Gervinho was sent off.

Yet these are not the worst results fans have been subjected to in recent years…