United Fixtures for 2015/2016

Manchester United start their 2015/2016 season at Old Trafford against North London side Tottenham Hotspur on the 8th of August. Manchester United will be hoping to start brightly unlike last season when Louis van Gaal lost his first game incharge against Swansea City. United have a moderate run of fixtures after facing Spurs until they face arch rivals Liverpool at home on the 12th of September. Should United go through the playoff round of the Champions League, they will travel to St. Mary’s followed by hosting Sunderland at Old Trafford. United then travel to The Emirates and Goodison Park before hosting The Manchester Derby at Old Trafford.

This will be a tricky run for Louis van Gaal’s men starting from hosting Liverpool to facing cross town rivals Manchester City at Old Trafford. Selhurst Park can be a tricky fixture to go into straight after the derby but United will have to cope with that if they are to be considered as serious title contenders.

After a fierce round of fixtures, United players and fans can take a deep breath as they play newly promoted sides Watford, AFC Bournemouth and Norwich City in the following weeks. United will look to gather maximum points from those fixtures as they also face Leicester, West Ham and Stoke City who will be their Boxing Day rivals. That run can be halted by Champions Chelsea who will arrive in Manchester in what will be the last match of the year. Chelsea will surely look to end the year on a high which has been a successful one in which they won the English League Cup and were also crowned The Barclays Premier League  Champions.

United will host Swansea City in the New Year and will then travel to the North East to face Newcastle at St. James Park before travelling back to the west, only to face Liverpool at Anfield.  They then will face The Saints and The Potters at Old Trafford before travelling to the home of Champions Chelsea in February. United will end February by playing Arsenal at home.

Manchester United will look upon the last run of fixtures to gain momentum and to keep up the pace if they are in any kind of contention to the become Champions in May. Trips to the Etihad and White Hart Lane seem the only few obstacles in what seems to be a good run of fixtures for the team from the red half of Manchester. They would then go on to play Villa, Leicester, Hammers and Norwich before playing AFC Bournemouth on the final day at Old Trafford.

It seems like a good run of fixtures in the starting and the end of the season and Louis van Gaal will be quite happy with the fixtures but the man should know what The Premier League exactly is and what even small teams can do to hurt you. He will also hope that his team start brightly unlike last season when they could not defeat the likes of Burnley and Sunderland. He would also be wary of teams like Leicester who came from 3-1 down to beat Manchester United 5-3 at the King Power Stadium. Manchester United would also face a new team in AFC Bournemouth who gained promotion for the first time in their history.

United start their season by touring the United States where they will play 4 teams including European Champions Barcelona and French club Paris Saint Germain. United will also be involved in The English League Cup later in the season and The FA Cup  in the New Year whose fixtures will be announced later. They might also finally be back in Europe if they go through the Champions League playoff round and enter the group stages of Europe’s elite tournament with the two-legged ties played on 18/19 August and 25/26 August. They have although been handed a tough round of fixtures in the Premier League after their midweek round of Champions League group stage fixtures. They will face Southampton (A), Arsenal (A), Manchester City (H), West Brom (H), Leicester (A) and Bournemouth(A) should they qualify from the playoffs.

Manchester United had to play a lesser number of games compared to their rivals Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham. They will need a bigger squad to contest for all the competitions and will have to be better if they’re to regain their status of being the Biggest Club in England.