Supercomputer Ranks Each Premier League Team’s Start to 2025–26 Season | OneFootball

If the Club World Cup isn’t doing it for you and not even Florian Plettenberg is reporting transfer news for your team, then perhaps you were really looking forward to the Premier League’s fixture release.

All 380 fixtures for the 2025–26 campaign dropped on Wednesday morning, and while there were those keen to remind us how unbothered they were about the release—"everyone plays everyone, innit?"—there’s no denying that schedules do matter. The order of your team’s fixtures is important.

When scanning the list of games, we tend to focus towards the start and end before filling the blanks with significant fixtures in the middle. You probably gasped and alerted the family that there are currently no Boxing Day fixtures scheduled.

The start of the season is where most of the intrigue lies, with teams keen to enjoy productive starts to set them up nicely for the rest of the campaign. Appeasing that intrigue, Opta has rated the difficulty of all 20 Premier League teams’ opening five fixtures of the new season.

Let’s see who’s been handed the shortest straw.

Opta used their Power Rankings to gauge the difficulty of each team’s fixtures. These Rankings rate thousands of teams from around the world on a scale from zero (weakest) to 100 (strongest). All Premier League sides thus have a score towards the top end of the scale, and Opta averaged out the scores of every team’s first five opponents to provide an average rating.

As a result, it doesn’t appear that whether a match is played at home or away has any bearing on these average ratings and the overall ranking.

Still, there’s no denying that Manchester United—the most successful opening-day team in Premier League history—and Arsenal have both been dealt tough starts. The two teams face off at Old Trafford on matchday one before facing two more members of the so-called ’Big Six’ in their first five games.

United visit neighbours Manchester City on matchday four before hosting Chelsea, while Arsenal visit the home of the champions and then host Manchester City. The Gunners also face a Nottingham Forest team that drastically exceeded expectations last season.

They’re two of three teams to encounter three ’Big Six’ members in their opening five, with newly promoted Burnley the other. Curiously, Opta ranks the Clarets’ start as the fourth ’easiest’ in the division despite them having to face Tottenham and Man Utd away, as well as Liverpool at home. It’s worth noting that Spurs and United’s Opta ranking would be comparably low given their woeful domestic seasons in 2024–25. Both teams are expected to be improved next term.

Bournemouth’s opening five games justifiably rank the third toughest as they face Spurs and Newcastle at home, but are forced to travel to Liverpool and Brighton. The champions kick off the season on Friday Night Football against the Cherries, who are bound to look plenty different from 2024–25, before travelling to St. James’ Park and hosting Arsenal in their first five. The first Merseyside derby of the season is pencilled in for matchday five at Anfield.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Aston Villa supposedly have the tamest opening act. They begin with a tricky game against Newcastle at Villa Park, but will be expected to claim close to maximum points from their next four against Brentford (A), Crystal Palace (H), Everton (H) and Sunderland (A).

The Bees don’t appear such an awkward opponent heading into the new season after losing Thomas Frank, whose Tottenham team host Burnley three days after the UEFA Super Cup final. Spurs, who have the 12th most difficult set of opening fixtures, visit Man City, West Ham and Brighton.