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One of the biggest mistakes Manuel Pellegrini’s West Ham United made during the 2018/2019 Premier League season was not getting any points on the board early on.
Facing Liverpool away, AFC Bournemouth at home, Arsenal away and Wolverhampton Wanderers at home, the Hammers suffered four defeats in their first four league matches under Pellegrini.
Whilst they would recover to steer themselves away from the danger area and back up into mid-table to challenge for European football in the next few months, it felt like the Irons were always playing catch-up.
Had they been able to pick up a win or two – or maybe even a draw or two – in those opening quartet of encounters things could have been very different, and they could have really pushed on to make that seventh spot their own and not barely scraped the top half. Who knows? The east Londoners may have even challenged for the top six.
That’s why members of the Claret & Blue Army would have been relieved to see that their team has the opportunity to reverse that huge mistake early in the 2019/2020 campaign.
This is after the full fixture list for next season’s Premier League was announced early on Thursday morning with the Hammers facing a much easier start, on paper at least, this time around.
Whilst West Ham have been given one of the hardest fixtures on the calendar first up, the visit of champions Manchester City to London Stadium, things do get a lot easier after that.
A matchday two trip to Brighton & Hove Albion follows and you have to feel that after another summer of spending, Pellegrini’s team will be expecting nothing less than a positive result on the south coast.
Then the club’s next visit will be a lot closer to home, Watford, where they will be feeling confident after a 4-1 victory at Vicarage Road on the final day of 2018/2019.
Next will be perhaps the easiest of the lot in the first four for the Irons – a home clash with newly-promoted Championship champions Norwich City.
Anyone would take these four opening fixtures over the ones faced by Pellegrini in his return season in English football on any day of the week.
And if the Hammers can pick up at least a few points before the September international break in contrast to last term, they will be well on their way to a much-improved second campaign under the veteran Chilean gaffer.
