West Ham’s Premiership fixtures for the 2019/20 season were officially announced this morning.
OPENING FIXTURES
The Hammers kick off the season with a difficult home fixture against Premier League Champions Man City. This game appears to be televised following its 12:30pm Kick Off time. The next fixture will see a trip to the south coast to Brighton. Followed by the first London Derby of the season with a trip across the city to play Watford. The fourth fixture sees Championship winners Norwich as visitors to Stratford with Play Off Winners Aston Villa next up for West Ham at Villa Park. West Ham’s sixth fixture will see the visit of Man United and hopefully a repeat of the same result as last season.
The opening six fixtures are a good mix up of games and hopefully Manuel Pellegrini’s Hammers can get off to a better start than last season where they lost their opening 4 games.
Every season since their move from the Boleyn Ground the fixture computer has assigned them an away game first up. West Ham fans will welcome an opening day fixture at home. If only it had been a bit nicer with the opponents!
BOXING DAY FIXTURE
However, the fans are faced with having to travel yet again in the traditional boxing day fixture. This time seeing a trip to Selhurst Park to play Crystal Palace. It will be the fourth season in a row that the Hammers have been forced to play away from the London Stadium on Boxing Day. Yet again talk will be about an alleged agreement in place with the Westfield Centre to avoid congestion in and around the centre on what is deemed the busiest shopping day of the year.
LAST GAME
Our last game of the season is a home fixture versus Aston Villa. A home match in the last game of the season is great for the likes of myself. As an overseas fan travel arrangements can be made in advance, the game is a 3pm kick off on a Sunday and this time slot won’t change for TV coverage (unlike every other fixture is subject to).
OTHER FIXTURES
Other fixtures of note would be the visit of London rivals Tottenham (23rd November) Arsenal (7th December) & Chelsea (4th April) and newly promoted (and new-found rivals following the Tevez debacle) Sheff Utd (26th October).
A full list of the fixtures can be found here.
Tony Close