West Ham have been handed a strange but potentially massive boost to the start of the season.

Once the Premier League season ends, the next date that fans look forward to is the day that fixtures get released. While everyone has to play the exact same games, when you play someone, the run of games and the end to the campaign can all have a massive effect on how the season plays out.

While West Ham don’t have any particularly treacherous runs, their opening 9 games are far from easy. Alongside playing the likes of Manchester City, Tottenham and Manchester United, they’ve also got teams like Aston Villa as well as Crystal Palace.

Thankfully, the Hammers may have one massive advantage in the first 3 months of the season and that’s that they don’t leave London once. All their away games up until the 2nd November where they travel to Nottingham are all within the Capital.

While this might not sound like it makes much of a difference, it means that there is less travelling to be done which means more time spent at the training ground and, therefore, more time to prepare for each match.

It’s these little things that can really make a massive difference and it could help our Irons turn a difficult run of fixtures into a rather favourable one.