West Ham’s Boleyn Ground send-off let down by Premier League snub

So today was the day West Ham fans finally found out who the Hammers would be facing in the final game at the Boleyn Ground before the move to the Olympic Stadium in 2016/17.

Swansea City will travel to Upton Park on Saturday 7^th May. The only issue is that it is not the last game of West Ham’s season. Instead, a miserable away trip to Stoke will round off West Ham’s final season despite the club asking for the final game of the season to be a home fixture.

Arsenal got their wish all those years ago when they played Wigan on the final game of the 2005/06 season in their Highbury send off. Unfortunately, the Premier League looked to have ignored West Ham’s request, sparking fury amongst the supporters and rightly so. Remarkably, it’ll be the third season in a row that West Ham finish their campaign on the road, having played out 2-0 losses to Newcastle and Manchester City in the seasons before.

Despite the fact that the Premier League have single-handedly ruined the end-of-season party, the rest of the fixture list is actually very good reading for most West Ham fans.

Yes, one of the trickiest openers of the season sees West Ham travel to the Emirates to face Arsenal, a fixture that has had only one outcome in recent seasons. However, looking at the way the fixtures have been dispersed, West Ham are not playing the so called ‘big boys’ within a small time frame of each other. The trickiest month looks to be March as West Ham face Tottenham, Everton and Chelsea, with the latter two teams separated by the visit of Watford to the Boleyn Ground.

That is probably as bad as it gets for West Ham but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Slaven Bilic should be relaxing. After the tricky opening day trip to the Emirates, two home fixtures against Leicester City and Bournemouth are must-wins for the side and Bilic will be desperate to avoid any early slip-ups in what is expected to be a very long and challenging season for the Irons.

Bilic will also be happy when he looks at the Hammers’ run in as only Manchester United and Arsenal look threatening out of the final seven fixtures of West Ham’s season. Both those games are also at home, so it looks like the fixture list has certainly been kind to West Ham, other than the final-day trip to Stoke of course.

Here are the full fixtures, available from whufc.com:

Date	Team	Venue
Saturday 8 August	Arsenal	A
Saturday 15 August	Leicester City	H
Saturday 22 August	AFC Bournemouth	H
Saturday 29 August	Liverpool	A
Saturday 12 September	Newcastle United	H
Saturday 19 September	Manchester City	A
Saturday 26 September	Norwich City	H
Saturday 3 October	Sunderland	A
Saturday 17 October	Crystal Palace	A
Saturday 24 October	Chelsea	H
Saturday 31 October	Watford	A
Saturday 7 November	Everton	H
Saturday 21 November	Tottenham Hotspur	A
Saturday 28 November	West Bromwich Albion	H
Saturday 5 December	Manchester United	A
Saturday 12 December	Stoke City	H
Saturday 19 December	Swansea City	A
Saturday 26 December	Aston Villa	A
Monday 28 December	Southampton	H
Saturday 2 January	Liverpool	H
Tuesday 12 January	AFC Bournemouth	A
Saturday 16 January	Newcastle United	A
Saturday 23 January	Manchester City	H
Tuesday 2 February	Aston Villa	H
Saturday 6 February	Southampton	A
Saturday 13 February	Norwich City	A
Saturday 27 February	Sunderland	H
Tuesday 1 March	Tottenham Hotspur	H
Saturday 5 March	Everton	A
Saturday 12 March	Watford	H
Saturday 19 March	Chelsea	A
Saturday 2 April	Crystal Palace	H
Saturday 9 April	Arsenal	H
Saturday 16 April	Leicester City	A
Saturday 23 April	Manchester United	H
Saturday 30 April	West Bromwich Albion	A
Saturday 7 May	Swansea City	H
Sunday 15 May	Stoke City	A