For Premier League fans hungry for entertainment during the summer months (especially given England's awful form), it's essential to hold on to as much as possible.
Even something as seemingly mundane as fixture list publication takes on unusual significance, particularly for clubs like Nottingham Forest, returning to the top flight after nearly a quarter of a century.
Here's everything you need to know about when the schedule and key dates for 2022-23
Premier League season is announced.
The full match-list for the 2022-23 Premier League season will be published at 9:00 am on Thursday, June 16.
While the order of the 380 matches will be confirmed, the precise dates and kick-off times will change as broadcasters make their television selections.
Live TV broadcasters for the 2022-23 season will show highlights from Match of the Day and Match of Day 2.
While the prospect of someone painstakingly pulling 20 balls out of a hat each week is appealing, there's more to it than that, as explained by Glenn Thompson of Atos, the IT firm that helps compile the list.
He told the official Premier League website that work begins after the Championship play-off final, confirming the composition of each division of the football pyramid.
Then, he says: "It's about putting each of the clubs on a matchup grid, which defines the dates they will be at home.
"For each date of the season, the fixture computer knows who is home and who is away and then randomly shuffles them to determine which games will take place on which date."
Home games are the critical starting point because many clubs have a partner they can't play, like Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Everton. At the same time, Thompson describes London as a bit more complex'.
The Premier League season is scheduled to start on Saturday, August 6, although broadcasters may opt for a Friday night match to open the campaign, as was the case in 2021-22.
It will end on Sunday, May 28, with the calendar taking a unique shape for an unprecedented winter break for the Qatar World Cup 2022.
This means that the season will be divided into two parts: before the World Cup until the end of November and after the World Cup from Boxing Day onwards.
The timelines are staggeringly tight, with the final round of Premier League matches before the World Cup scheduled for Saturday 12th and Sunday, November 13.
There is just over a week until the tournament's opening match between Senegal and the Netherlands on Monday, November 21.
And there are just eight days between the World Cup final on Sunday, December 18 and the resumption of the Premier League on Boxing Day.
The issue of player welfare will be a hot topic of discussion at the time, although the re-implementation of the controversial five-substitute rule will at least give managers a better chance to give their big stars a break.
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