FAMILIAR FACE WILL BE IN OPPOSITION WHEN POTTERS START SEASON
STOKE City will start the 2022/23 season locking horns with their old boss Gary Rowett at Millwall.
The season kicks off on Saturday, July 30 (3pm) and is a repeat of the opening day of the 2020/21 season - which finished as a 0-0 draw at the Den - and the fourth time Stoke have started a season against Millwall; winning 3-1 in 1930, losing 2-1 in 1993.
Stoke only have two players left in Michael O’neill’s squad who were signed in the summer Rowett was in charge; Sam Clucas and Benik Afobe, who was on loan at Millwall last term and is now expected to sign for Club Brugge.
Rowett was only at the club for half-a-season and joined Millwall in October 2019, making him the third-longest serving manager in the division behind Coventry’s Mark Robins and Paul Warne at newlypromoted Rotherham.
The season is kicking off earlier than normal because the Championship season will pause for a month while the World Cup is played out in Qatar. It will resume when the World Cup is at the quarter-final stage.
Stoke’s first home game is against Blackpool on Saturday, August 6 (3pm). They will head into the World Cup break with an away game at West Bromwich Albion on Saturday,
November 12 (3pm) and re-start at home to Cardiff on Saturday, December 10 (3pm).
The Boxing Day game is away at Rotherham. That is a repeat of Boxing Day 1962 when Stoke won 2-1 with goals from Dennis Viollet and Bill Asprey on their way to promotion to the top flight.
It will be Preston North End at home on New Year’s Day. Stoke played Preston at home on January 3 last season, losing 2-1, and on New Year’s Day 2003, winning 2-1 at home under Tony Puils.
It is Bristol City at home on Good Friday, April 3 - a repeat of last season’s fixture, which Bristol City won 1-0 - and will be away at Birmingham on Easter Monday, April 10. The last home game is against Queens Park Rangers on Saturday, April 29 (3pm) and the final day of the season is away at Watford on Saturday, May 6.
The longest away trips will see Stoke go to Norwich on October 29, Sunderland on March 4 and Swansea on January 28. The Swansea home match, on August 31, will be the fifth time in a row they have met in midweek – and eighth time out of 10 they haven’t played on a Saturday.
Familiar faces will be back at the bet365 Stadium over the next few months: Nathan Jones and Alfie Doughty with Luton on September 10; James Mcclean with Wigan on April 18 – the reverse match is on Remembrance weekend; Tom Ince with Reading on January 21, Rowett with Millwall on February 25, Danny Batth with Sunderland on August 20 and Nathan Collins with Burnley on December 29.
Watford are early bookies favourites to win the title, followed by Norwich, West Brom and Sheffield United. Rotherham are favourites to go down, with Birmingham and Reading.
Stoke have returned to Clayton Wood to start pre-season training and will have a behind closed doors friendly against a Premier League team at the training ground on July 2.
O’neill takes his squad to Ireland for a week-long training camp the following Monday, capped with a friendly at Cork on Saturday, July 9 (5pm). There are other friendlies in the diary at Bristol Rovers and Accrington and a couple more are expected to be announced soon.
He said: “It’s been good. The weather’s lovely, the pitches are immaculate and the lads have worked well. It’s typical pre-season, it’s always a little bit getting going
again. We play our first game after two weeks so the period of conditioning is getting shorter.
“Players come back in good condition. They’re not like it was in the past. They come back, get tested and we know where they are. Some had different programmes, some had international football to deal with.
“Some of the lads who’ve played international football are still away and it gives an opportunity to four or five young lads up and around it.”
· STOKE will visit Morecambe in the Carabao Cup first round.