With six matchdays until the 2025-26 Premier League season is even halfway through, we look at every team’s run of games up to the new year.
We’ve all been talking about title races, relegation fights and European challenges for weeks now, but should we be?
Well, yes, because football would be dull without doing so, but the fact remains there are far more points to play for this season than have been played for. Anything that has been done in the first half of a campaign can be undone in the second, in theory.
Arne Slot recently said – perhaps more in hope than anything given Liverpool’s form – that you shouldn’t really judge a season until the halfway point.
“I’ve said many times last season and I say this season again as well, the best way to judge a league table is after 38 games. But the next best thing, in my opinion, is after 19 games,” the Reds boss said last week.
So, with everyone having played 13 games in the Premier League in 2025-26, that means six more takes us to the 19-game halfway mark when judgement shall fully commence.
We’ve used the Opta Power Rankings to estimate the difficulty of each team’s next six fixtures, giving us an idea of who could move up and down the table in that time. Given things are so tight after Matchday 13, with just five points between Brighton in fifth and Fulham in 15th, it could all look very different after MD19.
Arsenal are in a strong position in the Premier League – with the Opta supercomputer judging them to have a 78.7% chance of winning the title – and between now and the halfway point of the season, they are just about in the easier half of the league when it comes to their next six games.
Of course, Mikel Arteta’s men do have an advantage given they are in first place in the Opta Power Rankings, and as they can’t play against themselves, they therefore have at least a slightly easier set of opponents than everyone else.
Their next six games include four at home, hosting Brentford, bottom-placed Wolves, Brighton and Aston Villa, while they also travel to Villa and an Everton side who were just thrashed at home by Newcastle. It is the 11th-toughest set of fixtures in that time according to the Power Rankings.
Interestingly, though, last year’s champions Liverpool appear to have the kindest run of games, while Arsenal’s closest challengers Manchester City have the second kindest.
Pep Guardiola’s men gained two points on Arsenal at the weekend following their late win against Leeds United and the Gunners’ 1-1 draw at 10-man Chelsea. They will hope to make up more ground as they face Fulham away and Sunderland at home in their next two, followed by Crystal Palace away and West Ham at home before trips to Nottingham Forest and Sunderland.
Everyone has been waiting for Liverpool to get back into gear, and perhaps that time has come. Despite a recent extended wobble that saw them freefall from first place into the bottom half, they did win and keep a clean sheet at West Ham on Sunday, and now face – on paper – the simplest next six in the division. Arne Slot’s side host Sunderland before a trip to Leeds in the next week. They then welcome Brighton to Anfield and have a trip to a Tottenham side who haven’t won at home since MD1, before back-to-back home games over relegation-threatened pair Wolves and Leeds after Christmas.
Manchester United and Newcastle United both have solid opportunities to build on their recent form with the third- and fourth-kindest fixtures schedules respectively, while Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest also have nice enough Decembers aside from both having to face Man City.
As for the toughest next six games, Aston Villa will have their work cut out to continue their recent form. Unai Emery’s side have risen up to fourth place after a run of three victories in a row, but the fact that two of their next six games are against Arsenal does them no favours when it comes to fixture difficulty calculations.
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1 hour ago Ryan BensonVilla’s other opponents in that time are Brighton, Manchester United and Chelsea, so all but one of their next six games are against teams in the top seven.
Sunderland have had a phenomenal start to the season, but they will really be tested over the next few weeks. Regis Le Bris’ men come up against Man City twice, as well as Liverpool, Newcastle and Leeds.
Similarly to Villa, West Ham also have five of their next six games against teams in the top seven, while Wolves’ issues at the bottom of the table are unlikely to improve any time soon given they have the fourth-toughest December, facing Manchester United twice as well as Arsenal and Liverpool.
The struggling trio of Leeds, Spurs and Burnley also have a fairly tricky period ahead of them.
We can also extend it to look at the next 10 fixtures, though obviously things could have changed by then, so what looks like a tricky game now may not be when it comes around.
As we’re only adding an extra four fixtures, things don’t move around too much, but it’s interesting to see that it’s Newcastle who are deemed to have the simplest next 10 games. That could be just what they need as they try to navigate domestic games around their Champions League commitments up to the end of the league phase.
Liverpool are next, despite the fact they travel to Arsenal in early January, ahead of Man City and Man Utd, though the latter end that sequence with games against City and the Gunners.
Tottenham’s fixtures get much kinder on paper after New Year’s Day, as do West Ham’s, though the fact they play each other in that time means at least one of them will drop points.
Villa still have the toughest run of matches, so if they’re still in the race for the Champions League spots after 23 games, you’d have to fancy them to go one better than last season when they just missed out on the final day.
Bournemouth and Wolves have the next toughest run of 10, while Arsenal have the ninth toughest.
Arteta’s men are heavy favourites to win the league at the moment, but where they are after 19, 23, and ultimately, 38 games will mean a lot more.
We can’t wait to see how it all plays out.
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Premier League Fixture Difficulty: Which Teams Have the Easiest and Hardest Runs to the Halfway Point? Opta Analyst.
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