Why Aston Villa vs Bournemouth and Crystal Palace vs West Ham start at 3pm this SUNDAY

As fans look forward to watching some Premier League football this weekend, they will quickly notice that the fixture schedule is very unusual.

Typically, games will be scheduled for 12:30 pm, 3 pm or 5:30 pm on Saturdays or 2 pm or 4:30 pm on Sundays.

However, this weekend the action has deviated from the usual plan with a strange schedule change.

Aston Villa vs Bournemouth and crystal Palace vs western ham They are both ready to move forward in 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon.

And that has been forced to happen because of the midweek European matches.

The Premier League has explained on their website that the match was moved from Saturday “due to Aston Villa and West Ham being in UEFA competitions”.

Villa will play the second leg of the Europa Conference League quarterfinals against Lille Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Hammers travel to Germany to take on the newly crowned Bundesliga champions. Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League that same night.

So, to allow enough recovery and travel time for both teams, the games were moved to Sunday afternoon.

However, there is no official reason from the Premier League or either club as to why the match is at 3pm instead of the usual 2pm kick-off.

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Aston Villa announced the change last month and his only reasoning was “due to the club's participation in the UEFA Europa Conference League.”

crystal Palace revealed the same for their match, announcing that “the move is necessary due to West Ham's participation in the Europa League quarter-finals the previous Thursday.”

In addition to the strange change on Sunday, Saturday also seems different.

There are only two games in the traditional 3:00 pm slot and the Wolves are the hosts Arsenal in 19:30 in the afternoon.