Aston Villa’s preparations for a third consecutive year in the Sky Bet Championship can begin, following this morning's fixture release.

Steve Bruce’s side will travel to the KCOM Stadium to face Hull City in their first fixture of the season, with Wigan Athletic the first side to visit Villa Park during the 2018/19 campaign.

It’s a reasonably steady start to the season for Villa, but Bruce’s side face two testing periods, the first coming over November and December.

A similar run of fixtures takes place in February and March, which will really test Bruce’s side.

Key fixtures include a trip to Swansea City on Boxing Day, whilst Villa will finish the season by welcoming Norwich City to Villa Park on May 5^th.

With Villa’s supporters still coming to terms with missing out on promotion last season, there has been plenty of reaction to this morning’s fixture release.

Here is the best of it…