The 2025-26 Premier League fixtures have just been released, so we’ve looked at the schedule to analyse which teams have the easiest and toughest starts to the new season.
Premier League fixture release day marks the start of the new season and gets (some) fans excited about the upcoming campaign. Local derbies can be identified. Potential title-deciding games can be analysed. Supporters of newly promoted clubs can mark their calendars with landmark dates for the season, with away trips to the big clubs circled in red. (It’s all utterly pointless, because the games are likely to be moved for TV coverage, but still!)
The 2025-26 season kicks off with reigning champions Liverpool hosting Bournemouth at Anfield on Friday 15 August, with the Cherries hoping to avoid becoming Mohamed Salah’s latest opening-day victims. Salah has scored more goals (9) and registered more goal involvements (14) on the opening weekend of the Premier League campaign than any other player.
Just one of the last 12 Premier League title winners have lost their opening game in their successful campaign – Manchester City in 2021-22, who lost 1-0 at Tottenham.
It might sound obvious, but getting off to a strong start really is key to a good season, especially for teams at the bottom of the table. Making a positive start can make or break a campaign. Overall, 100 teams have won their opening two games of a Premier League season, and just three of them have gone on to be relegated that campaign: Wolves in 2011-12, Hull in 2016-17 and West Brom in 2017-18.
The most eye-catching fixture of Matchday 1 is Manchester United vs Arsenal on Sunday 17 August. The Red Devils are now the first team in Premier League history to start a campaign with a home game in nine successive seasons.
It is also just the second time in English league history that Manchester United are hosting Arsenal in their first game of the season, previously beating the Gunners 4-1 in 1989-90.
Premier League Matchday 1 Fixtures: 2025-26
Liverpool vs Bournemouth (Friday 15 August)Aston Villa vs Newcastle United (Saturday 16 August)Brighton & Hove Albion vs Fulham (Saturday 16 August)Nottingham Forest vs Brentford (Saturday 16 August)Sunderland vs West Ham United (Saturday 16 August)Tottenham Hotspur vs Burnley (Saturday 16 August)Wolverhampton Wanderers vs Manchester City (Saturday 16 August)Chelsea vs Crystal Palace (Sunday 17 August)Manchester United vs Arsenal (Sunday 17 August)Leeds United vs Everton (Monday 18 August)
Using the Opta Power Rankings, we can quantify how easy (or difficult) each team’s opening schedule is.
As a reminder, these Power Rankings rate a frankly enormous number of teams (15,000+) across the globe based on a system that scores the current strongest side 100 and the weakest zero. Those scores are then used to rank the teams in order of strongest to weakest.
Focusing on the Premier League, we looked at the average Opta Power Rating of each team’s opponents to measure fixture difficulty.
These range from Liverpool (the number one team in the world with a Opta Power Rating of 100.0 and therefore the hardest to play against) to Sunderland (ranked 123rd in the world with a Opta Power Rating of 82.3 and therefore the ‘easiest’ team to play against in England’s top flight).
Here’s how things shake up:
The Opening Five Games
Man Utd enter 2025-26 after their worst Premier League season of all time. They finished 15th, with their 18 defeats the club’s most in a league campaign since 1973-74, when they lost 20 games and were relegated from the top flight.
The bad news for Ruben Amorim and United is that they’ve been given the hardest start to the new Premier League season of any club. The average Opta Power Rating of their opening five opponents is 94.6. Their home game against Arsenal is followed by an away trip to Fulham and a home game versus newly promoted Burnley before a Matchday 4 Manchester derby at the Etihad Stadium. To complete their tricky five-game opening run, they host Chelsea on MD 5.
It’s also a tough start to the season for Mikel Arteta and Arsenal. After another failed title attempt in 2024-25, he’ll have to navigate an opening-weekend meeting with United at Old Trafford before a tricky away trip to newly promoted Leeds United on MD 2.
It doesn’t get much easier after that either, with an away trip to Liverpool on MD 3 and a home meeting with Man City on MD 5 either side of a game against last season’s surprise team Nottingham Forest at the Emirates.
On the positive side for Arteta, United haven’t won any of their last six matches against Arsenal in all competitions, although they did progress in the FA Cup against them at the Emirates Stadium last season following a penalty shootout in the third round.
When we assessed the opening five fixtures of the 2024-25 season based on the Opta Power Rankings, we concluded that Liverpool had the kindest start to the campaign – a warm welcome for new boss Arne Slot. That ‘easier’ start turned out to provide the foundations for a title-winning campaign, with Slot becoming just the fifth manager to lift the Premier League trophy in his first season in England.
It’s harder for the Dutchman this time around, with the average Opta Power Rating of Liverpool’s first five opponents at 93.3, giving them the fifth hardest start to the 2025-26 Premier League campaign.
Aston Villa are deemed to have the kindest start to the season based on the strength of their opponents in the opening five matchdays. Their opposition have an average Opta Power Rating of 90.9. They kick things off with a tough home game against Newcastle United at Villa Park. They faced the Magpies on the opening weekend of the 2023-24 season and were thrashed 5-1, albeit at St James’ Park rather than in front of their home crowd.
The Opening 10 Games
Liverpool’s ‘reward’ for winning the 2024-25 Premier League title is to be handed the hardest opening 10 games of 2025-26, as Slot’s side face opponents with an average Opta Power Rating of 93.5.
They face four of last season’s top six within the opening 10 matchdays, plus an away trip to FA Cup winners Crystal Palace and a home game with rivals Manchester United on MD 8.
When we assessed the opening 10 fixtures this time last year ahead of the 2024-25 season, Wolves were deemed to have the hardest opening 10 games. The tables have turned this time around, with Vitor Pereira’s side handed the ‘easiest’ start to the campaign. Their 10 opponents have an average Opta Power Rating of 91.2, but they do face one of the hardest opening day fixtures.
Their home game against Manchester City on MD 1 will give them the chance of ending a four-season run of losing their opening fixture to a Premier League campaign, but it won’t be an easy task.
Both Sunderland and Leeds are handed kind starts – well, as kind as it can get as a Premier League club – with only Chelsea and Wolves’ first 10 opponents having a lower average Opta Power Rating.
As a Premier League side, Sunderland haven’t won their opening match in any of the last seven seasons (D4 L3), most recently losing 2-1 to Pep Guardiola’s Man City in 2016-17.
Thomas Frank will begin life at Tottenham manager with a Super Cup match against Paris Saint-Germain, but in the Premier League it’ll be a home game against the other newly promoted side, Burnley.
Including caretakers, none of Spurs’ last eight managers have lost their first league game (W5 D3), with André Villas-Boas the last to do so, losing 2-1 vs Newcastle in August 2012.
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Premier League Fixtures: Who Has the Toughest Start to 2025-26? Opta Analyst.
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