Premier League Boxing Day scores and schedule

The Premier League’s teams got a nice little five-day rest and now get to kick off one of the world’s best holiday traditions: Running themselves into the ground! For most Premier League teams, the game that they play on Boxing Day will be the first of four in eight days. Meanwhile, Lionel Messi, Andrea Pirlo and Arjen Robben sit on their couches and laugh.

Because everyone tunes in for Boxing Day anyway, the scheduling gods usually don’t love to give us big marquee matches, but there’s plenty of super watchable stuff this time around. The early game is a local derby featuring an entertaining West Ham side, while Manchester United should get a decent challenge from Newcastle.

This slate of games could also mark the end of the road for some under-fire managers. Someone is going to win the Premier League sack race over the next two weeks, but who? Some have touted Brendan Rodgers as the favorite, but Hull’s Steve Bruce and Leicester’s Nigel Pearson appear to be in a bit more trouble. Losses during this set of games could see one (or two, or three) of them out of work before the new year.

TV: NBCSN (U.S.), TSN1 (Canada), Sky Sports 1 (U.K.)

West Ham continue to stick in the upper part of the table. Their last loss was five games ago, away to Everton. They won’t be expected to get a result against Chelsea, but they have enough players healthy and in good form that they could steal a point here and pull off a couple of wins in forthcoming fixtures. It also helps that Eden Hazard isn’t expected to be fit to play in this game.

TV: NBCSN (U.S.), TSN4 (Canada), BT Sport 1 (U.K.)

It looks like the Newcastle fans are turning on Alan Pardew again. They’ve lost two in a row in the league, including a derby defeat to Sunderland, and they got absolutely pasted in the League Cup final. He could restore a lot of goodwill with an upset result at Old Trafford, but United have been able to scrape points in games where they don’t even play that well as of late. However, their recent draw against Aston Villa should give the Magpies some hope.

TV: NBCSN (U.S.), Sportsnet regional (Canada), BT Sport 1 (U.K.)

Lately, QPR’s been able to outplay their relegation rivals and take three points from those games while falling to teams in the top half without putting up that much of a fight. There’s not a lot of reason to believe this game will deviate from that pattern.

Schedule (all times Eastern, scores will be updated as they come in)