Chelsea won the Premier League by eight points in 2014-15
17 June 2015
Last updated at
09:00
Chelsea will begin their Premier League title defence with a home game against Swansea on the weekend of 8-9 August.
Manchester City, who finished eight points adrift of the Blues, travel to West Brom while Manchester United face Tottenham at Old Trafford.
Arsenal host West Ham, Liverpool go to Stoke, Newcastle play Southampton and Leicester welcome Sunderland.
Promoted trio Bournemouth, Watford and Norwich face Aston Villa, Everton and Crystal Palace respectively.
The top-flight season starts a week earlier than last season – on the same weekend as the Football League – as the 2016 European Championship starts on 10 June.
Click here for the Premier League fixtures in full.
Alternatively, scan the list below for your club.
Premier League
AFC Bournemouth
Arsenal
Aston Villa
Chelsea
Crystal Palace
Everton
Leicester City
Liverpool
Manchester City
Manchester United
Newcastle United
Norwich City
Southampton
Stoke City
Sunderland
Swansea City
Tottenham Hotspur
Watford
West Bromwich Albion
West Ham United
In the Championship, relegated Hull host Huddersfield, Burnley travel to Leeds and Queens Park Rangers are at Charlton.
Preston North End are the only promoted team with a home game as they welcome beaten play-off finalists Middlesbrough to Deepdale, with MK Dons and Bristol City at Rotherham and Sheffield Wednesday respectively.
Preston beat Swindon in the League One play-off final last season
Last season’s beaten play-off semi-finalists – Brentford and Ipswich – meet at Griffin Park.
Click here for the Championship fixtures in full
Promoted Shrewsbury begin their League One campaign with a home game against Millwall. Wigan and Blackpool – relegated along with Millwall – face away games, at Coventry and Colchester respectively.
League Two champions Burton host Scunthorpe, while fellow promoted teams Bury and Southend visit Doncaster and Fleetwood respectively.
Click here for the League One fixtures in full
Conference champions Barnet will start life back in League Two with a trip to relegated Leyton Orient, as fellow promoted side Bristol Rovers host Northampton.
Notts County are away at Stevenage after being relegated, with Crawley at Oxford and Yeovil visiting Exeter.
Click here for the League Two fixtures in full
Fixtures are subject to change in line with television scheduling.
The Scottish Premiership, Scottish Championship, Scottish League One and Scottish League Two will publish their fixtures on Friday.
Here’s how the Premier League fixtures break down:
Opening shots
An early indicator in the title race could come on the second weekend of matches, when Chelsea travel to Manchester City.
After opening at home to Swansea, Chelsea are scheduled to play at Etihad Stadium on Saturday, 15 August, though the match may well take place a day later for television purposes.
The defending Premier League champions have never lost their opening fixture. In 23 seasons, the record is won 20 and drawn three.
Festive fun
Teams will play three times in eight days, although there are no Premier League matches scheduled for New Year’s Day. Games will instead take place on Saturday, 2 January 2016.
Which team’s fans will be having a very merry Christmas this year?
Manchester United against Chelsea on 28 December stands out among the festive fixtures.
The big five
Arsenal will get two big early chances to show their credentials – at home to Liverpool on 22 August and away at Chelsea four weeks later.
Manchester City’s season includes tasty encounters both near the start and end – they host Chelsea in their second game and welcome the Gunners for the penultimate match, provisionally on 7 May.
Manchester United host newcomers Bournemouth on the final day of the season.
How big five fared against each other in 2014-15
Team
Won
Drawn
Lost
Pts
Chelsea
3
5
0
14
Man City
2
3
3
9
Arsenal
2
4
2
10
Man Utd
4
2
2
14
Liverpool
1
2
5
5
The new boys
Bournemouth, who won the Championship title, host Aston Villa in their first ever Premier League game, before away trips to Liverpool and West Ham.
Watford, who finished runners-up to the Cherries in the second tier, have arguably the toughest of the opening games with a trip to Everton and then back-to-back home matches against West Brom and Southampton.
Play-off winners Norwich kick off with a home game against Crystal Palace before an away trip to Sunderland and a home fixture against Stoke.
Norwich owner Delia Smith watched her team win promotion via the play-offs
There have been two occasions since the Premier League’s inaugural season in 1992-93 when all three promoted clubs have stayed up.
Blackburn (10th), Fulham (13th) and Bolton (16th) managed it in 2001-02. Then Swansea (11th), Norwich (12th) and QPR (17th) repeated the feat in 2011-12.
And there’s only one occasion when all three promoted teams went straight back down. That was in 1997-98, when Bolton (18th), Barnsley (19th) and Crystal Palace (20th) were all relegated.
Hardest start
Everton and Stoke face possibly the toughest starts to the campaign with a testing run of games.
The Toffees start with a home game against Watford but then face Southampton (away), Manchester City (home), Tottenham (away) and Chelsea (home) in their next four matches.
The big derbies
Merseyside – 3 Oct: Everton v Liverpool
27 Feb: Liverpool v Everton
Manchester – 24 Oct: Manchester United v Manchester City
19 Mar: Manchester City v Manchester United
North London – 7 Nov: Arsenal v Tottenham
5 Mar: Tottenham v Arsenal
Stoke host Liverpool – albeit a team they thrashed 6-1 on the final day of last season – then travel to Tottenham. The Potters then have an away game to Norwich before they face West Brom, managed by former boss Tony Pulis, followed by a clash with Arsenal at Emirates Stadium.
Four clubs have managed just one point from their opening eight games:
Man City in 1995-96,
Southampton in 1998-99
Sheffield Wednesday in 1999-2000
Sunderland in 2013-14
More surprisingly, two of them – Southampton and Sunderland – survived.
Hardest run-in
Bournemouth will hope to have banked enough points to stay in the top flight given they have a particularly testing end to the season.
The Cherries face Liverpool, Everton, Chelsea and Manchester United in four of their last five matches.
Leicester City came into brilliant form at the of last season to secure survival, and Nigel Pearson will hope his side are in a good position by the time they face Manchester United, Everton and Chelsea in their final three games.
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.
BBC Sport – Sport
The post Chelsea host Swansea on opening day appeared first on MyFeedly.info.