Premier League opening weekend fixtures and times: Slot's Liverpool kick off against Ipswich while Maresca's Chelsea take on Manchester City

Kieran McKenna's Ipswich will face post-Jurgen Klopp Liverpool on the opening weekend of the new Premier League season, with talkSPORT showing it live.

The newly promoted team returns to the top flight. The first time in 22 years and will welcome the Merseyside giants, under new manager Arne Slot, to Portman Road this Saturday lunchtime.

Manchester United will begin the season on Friday before facing Fulham at Old Trafford.

Last season's runners-up Arsenal Aston Villa, making their Champions League debut, travel to West Ham in the afternoon for the first game of the season at 5.30pm CET, at home to Wolves.

And new Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca will host Manchester City on Sunday in his first competitive game since replacing Mauricio Pochettino.

It will be a reunion for both of them since Maresca was Former assistant to Pep Guardiola. Maresca left his post at City to join Leicester in 2023, just days after winning the Champions League.

He guided the Foxes back to the Premier League before leaving earlier this summer to become Chelsea manager.

Elsewhere, newly promoted Southampton begin their season back in the top flight by travelling to Newcastle, Everton kick off their campaign against Brighton and Brentford host Crystal Palace.

Leicester host Tottenham in the first Monday Night Football of the season, also broadcast live exclusively on talkSPORT.

To cope with the overload of the schedule over Christmas and New Year, arrangements will be made to allow for extra time off during three of the festive rounds of matches. No club will play within 60 hours of another match and there will be no fixture on 24 December.

The mid-season break has also been removed from the calendar to allow the Premier League to start in mid-August, with the final day of the season being 25 May 2025.

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Chelsea and Manchester United are specialists in opening matches, having won 62.5 per cent of their opening games (33 games, 20 wins). However, Guardiola has won 87.5 per cent of his opening games, with Spurs the only team to have beaten him.

Slot will hope to continue to count on Mohamed Salah in his team given he has scored in six of his last seven opening games for Liverpool and Leicester striker Jamie Vardy has seven goals in his opening day appearances.

Only Salah, Frank Lampard, Alan Shearer and Wayne Rooney have scored eight.

talkSPORT will once again be the home of Premier League football on the radio in 2024/25. We'll be bringing you over 120 top-flight commentaries across our network, starting with four games on the opening weekend, including Manchester United vs Fulham and Ipswich vs Liverpool.