Premier League fixtures live: Latest updates as 2024-25 schedule released today

The Premier League have welcomed Liverpool’s new head coach Arne Slot to England with the man he’s replacings favourite fixture time as Liverpool face newly promoted Ipswich at 12:30pm on the opening weekend.

Slot will have little time to settle into his new surroundings before he faces one his new team’s fiercest rivals, Manchester United, in his third league game in charge. He has to wait for December for his first Merseyside derby against Everton and the final one at Goodison Park.

It is not too difficult of a start for the Dutchman and his team although the fixtures following Champions League matches are not as kind with Arsenal and Manchester City two of the matches coming after European midweek games.

Across the schedule, Liverpool’s fixtures look fairly well balanced. If they have title aspirations the stretch of Tottenham, Chelsea and Arsenal at the end of April and start of May could be a hugely defining moment in any bid to compete with Manchester City.

Julen Lopetegui’s first official game as head coach will be at home to Aston Villa. The Spaniard, who replaced David Moyes in May, will hope to replicate West Ham’s promising start to the campaign in 2023-24. They amassed 10 points from a possible 12 in their first four league games, before suffering back-to-back defeats against Manchester City and Liverpool.

But there are tough fixtures in West Ham’s first six games. Crystal Palace is a bogey team, considering the 5-2 defeat at Selhurst Park in April. They then face Manchester City before games against Fulham, Chelsea and Brentford. The 2-1 victory against Chelsea on home soil in August shows West Ham are capable of beating their London rivals, but they have only beaten Brentford once in the league since their promotion to the top-flight in 2021.

Following the addition of Luis Guilherme from Palmeiras, Lopetegui wants to sign a centre-forward, winger and defender. This will be a transitional season for West Ham, who will be playing without European football for the first time since 2020-21.

Fulham claim the spotlight on a few key dates next season. First of all, they will head to Old Trafford for the curtain raiser on Friday night. Can they cause Erik ten Hag an early headache, and repeat their famous win of last season?

On Boxing Day, Fulham travel a mile down the road to face rivals Chelsea, seeking their first away win over the Blues in the derby since 1979.

And finally, Fulham may well have a part to play in the title race, as Manchester City visit on the final day of the season — the same final home fixture as this past season.

The fixtures overall offer mixed runs of fortune, with few long runs of ‘good’ fixtures. They will want a good start, with newly promoted sides Leicester and Ipswich to play in the opening weeks.

Late November and early December look particularly challenging, with Spurs, Brighton, Arsenal and Liverpool to play in the space of two weeks. February-March looks like a key period for their ambitions, facing four of last season’s mid-table contingent in succession.

After that, though, their run-in is also a bit sticky. In the final weeks, they face two derbies (Brentford and Chelsea), a trip to Villa and a Man City visit. They will want enough points in the bag by that point.

So now we know Southampton will be the Everton’s final opponents for Goodison Park’s emotional send-off. While they may have had other opponents, with more obvious symbolism in mind, the club will at least be happy that their request to host the game on the penultimate weekend of the season was granted.

The idea is that there will hopefully be no title race drama or relegation battles to overshadow what is a key moment in Everton’s history, and media eyes should be able to more fully focus on events at Goodison.

Everton will hope to bow out from Goodison on a high, and with the Premier League status already long intact.

Their start appears on the more challenging side. After hosting Brighton on the opening day, they also have tough trips to Tottenham and Aston Villa in their first five.

The period between late November and New Year, which sees games against Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City, also looks tricky.

Mercifully, the Premier League fixture computer has not thrown up the brutal runs of recent years for Newcastle United, but it has confirmed that Sandro Tonali is free to make his return from a 10-month betting ban against Tottenham at St James’ Park.

The Italy international’s suspension ends on August 29, meaning he will be available to face Spurs on August 31, in Newcastle’s third match of the 2024-25 campaign.

Eddie Howe’s side begin their campaign on Tyneside, hosting newly promoted Southampton on August 17, and finishing the season against Everton at home on May 25.

The start of the season is kinder than it was in 2023-24 — when Newcastle faced Aston Villa, Manchester City, Liverpool and Brighton & Hove Albion in their opening four games — although it is still not straightforward.

After hosting Southampton, Newcastle travel to Bournemouth in their first away fixture, then face Spurs on Tyneside. Trips to Wolves and Fulham are then followed by Manchester City, the four-times-straight champions, at St James’.

Newcastle’s festive run also appears challenging. Their first visit to Portman Road in the Premier League in more than 20 years is on December 21, the weekend before Christmas, and then, after travelling to Ipswich Town, they welcome Villa on Boxing Day. Manchester United away on December 29 and then a trip to Spurs follow on January 4, 2025.

The last away match of the season is a daunting visit to the Emirates to face Arsenal, who finished second last season, on May 18, and it ends another campaign when Newcastle will have no league derbies. Instead, the most straightforward journeys for fans are to Manchester and Nottingham, still more than two-and-a-half hours away.

Overall, Spurs’ fixture list this season does not look especially problematic, in the sense that their hardest games are evenly spread out rather than bunched as they were last season.

Spurs never have consecutive league games against other ‘Big Six’ sides. But this season they will be back in Europe, competing in the Europa League in its expanded format, which will throw up new challenges in terms of managing their schedule.

Spurs fans’ attention will immediately be drawn to the first north London derby of the season, which will be held in Tottenham on September 14.

Ange Postecoglou will start his second season as Spurs manager with a trip to newly-promoted Leicester City on August 19, meaning that Spurs and Leicester will be the last of the Premier League teams to open their 2024-25 campaign. They finish the season hosting Brighton at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on May 25.

Baptisms of fire do not get more daunting than the one facing Enzo Maresca on his competitive debut as Chelsea head coach, with champions Manchester City set to visit Stamford Bridge on the opening weekend of the Premier League’s 2024-25 season.

Facing off against his mentor Pep Guardiola will provide a formidable early examination of Maresca’s pre-season work implementing his style of play, and Chelsea supporters will be expecting to see the kind of resistance mustered by Mauricio Pochettino’s team in a thrilling 4-4 draw in last season’s corresponding fixture.

Beyond that opening test, Maresca’s early fixture list looks relatively favourable, with the following six games all against teams who finished ninth or lower in 2023-24. But the City result could condition what follows and building momentum is likely to be key, with Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester United and Arsenal in quick succession in October and November.

For calendar circling purposes, Chelsea travel across London to take on bitter rivals Tottenham on December 7, with the return fixture at Stamford Bridge slated for April 2.

The closing stretch of what Chelsea hope will be a charge towards Champions League qualification could be challenging, with a final-day trip to face Nottingham Forest preceded by a run of games against Liverpool, Newcastle and United.

That late August visit from Liverpool recalls Erik ten Hag's first season, when an unlikely 2-1 win on a highly-charged evening at Old Trafford salvaged his difficult start to life as United manager.

Things have not got much easier since and Ten Hag will hope he does not go into that fixture once again needing a positive result to ease some early pressure.

United's opening run is not too bad, although trips to Selhurst Park and Villa Park either side of a visit from Tottenham Hotspur arrive just as the expanded Europa League campaign gets underway.

Ten Hag's side will visit the Etihad Stadium only a fortnight after returning from the Emirates in December but meetings with the rest of the so-called 'big six' never follow one after another and, for the most part, are spread out.

United's closing pair of fixtures could be crucial, though, against two other clubs whose ambition will be qualifying for the Champions League.

If that is still in play by the time of United's trip to Stamford Bridge on the penultimate weekend and the visit from Aston Villa on the final day, that'll at least be an improvement on last season.

• North London derbies: Tottenham at home, September 14; Arsenal at home, January 14
• Manchester derbies: Manchester City at home, December 14; Manchester United at home, April 5
• Merseyside derbies: Everton at home, December 7; Liverpool at home, April 2
• North west derbies: Manchester United at home, August 31; Liverpool at home, January 4
• M23 derbies: Brighton at home, December 14; Crystal Palace at home, April 5
• East Midlands derbies: Leicester at home, October 26; Forest at home, May 10

Any fixtures catch your eye? Manchester United vs Aston Villa looks potentially tasty...

Here is the league's traditional set of Boxing Day games — some of these, of course, will be moved for TV picks.

The fixtures are here!

Ipswich Town are ready for a first game back in the Premier League for more than 22 years.

Kieran McKenna’s side stunned the Championship last season and secured promotion with a second-place finish, having only come up as League One runners-up the year before.

They took Leicester City right to the wire and finished on 96 points, only a point behind the eventual champions.

McKenna drew interest from a number of other clubs this summer before committing his future to Ipswich with a new long-term contract.

Speaking of Maresca, the new Chelsea boss will be hopeful of hitting the ground running after making the switch to Stamford Bridge.

The Italian signed a five-year deal — which includes a club-held option to extend by 12 months — to replace Mauricio Pochettino.

Games against London rivals Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur are always high on the agenda for Chelsea supporters while Maresca will surely have one eye on a reunion with his former clubs, too, which include champions Manchester City.