The new Premier League season kicks off on August 15 and the first real eye-catching fixture is at Old Trafford a fortnight later when Arsenal visit champions Manchester United for the first twist in the title race.

United manager Alex Ferguson will clash with new Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti at Stamford Bridge on November 7, two weeks after visiting rivals Liverpool at Anfield.

After the all-important Christmas period, the pick of the reverse fixtures see United visiting Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium on January 30 and then hosting last season’s Premier League runners-up Liverpool on March 20.

United’s last match against one of the other members of the leading quartet comes when Chelsea visit Old Trafford* on April 3.

Other dates for the diary:

Oct. 3/May 1: Chelsea v Liverpool

Dec. 12/Feb. 9: Liverpool v Arsenal

Nov. 28/Feb. 6: Arsenal v Chelsea

Nov. 28/Feb. 6: Everton v Liverpool

Oct. 31/Apr. 10: Arsenal v Tottenham

PHOTO: Alex Ferguson lifts the Premier League trophy at Old Trafford. May 16, 2009. REUTERS/Phil Noble

* corrected (see comments below)

Somebody must have bought Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger a calculator each for Christmas because both managers have done their sums and criticised the Premier League’s fixture programme.

After the United boss wondered aloud if the league was handicapping his club through their fixture list, his Arsenal counterpart crunched the numbers over the weekend

“I saw Ferguson made the case about fixtures,” Wenger said. “And we checked because we are always curious. And he has a case, and in this case so do we.

“If you take the international fixtures plus the Champions League, everybody has played ten games, six Champions League games and four internationals. And after those 10 games, we played eight away games and two at home. Manchester United played nine away games, Chelsea played six games at home and four away. And Liverpool played eight times at home and two away.”

With domestic fixtures necessarily organised before those in Europe, it’s difficult to completely follow their arguments but there’d certainly be one easy way to end the fixture problem in England.

It might be a bold suggestion in the current economic climate - and one which the Premier League would never accept - but never mind the 39th fixture, let’s cut the top flight down to 18 teams and why not scrap the League Cup while we’re at it.

In the Bundesliga (18 clubs) they get to put their feet up for six weeks every winter. And sure, there are 20 sides in the top divisions in Spain and Italy but they only have one domestic cup competition to distract them.

As for the League Cup, why not follow the German lead again and make it a pre-season tournament, an extension of the Community Shield. I doubt you’d hear a peep from Ferguson or Wenger.

Maybe then we could get down to tacking another tradition - the Boxing Day programme - and give these poor overworked players a few festive days off.

PHOTO: Arsene Wenger at Arsenal training, London Colney, Nov. 24, 2008. REUTERS/Eddie Keogh