The 2024-25 Premier League The season is about to start and we have looked at the schedule to analyze which teams have the easiest and which have the most difficult start to the new season.
The release day of Premier League fixtures on June 18 was technically the start of the new season, and it got fans excited for the season ahead. Supporters of the newly promoted clubs have marked their calendars with key dates for the season, with away trips to the big clubs circled in red. This is all completely pointless, as games will likely be rescheduled for television coverage, but still. We are now less than a week away from the start of the 2024–25 Premier League season and excitement has reached boiling point for many.
A good start is the key to a good season. For teams that are expected to be bottom of the table at the end of the season, a positive start can make or break a season. In total, 96 teams have won their first two games of a Premier League season and only three of those have been relegated this season: Wolves in 2011-12, Hull in 2016-17 and West Brom in 2017-18.
Only one of the last eleven Premier League title winners has lost their opening game of this successful season – Manchester City in the 2021/22 season, who lost 1-0 at Tottenham Hotspur.
This time, reigning champions Man City travel to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea, a team they have lost four points to in the 2023/24 season, including an entertaining 4-4 draw in London in November. This is the first time Chelsea have started a top-flight season with a game against the reigning champions since 1971/72, when they lost 3-0 to Arsenal at Highbury.
Premier League, Matchday 1: 2024–25
Manchester United vs Fulham (Friday, August 16)
Arsenal vs Wolverhampton Wanderers (Saturday, August 17)
Everton vs Brighton & Hove Albion (Saturday, August 17)
Ipswich Town vs Liverpool (Saturday, August 17)
Newcastle United vs Southampton (Saturday, August 17)
Nottingham Forest vs Bournemouth (Saturday, August 17)
West Ham United vs Aston Villa (Saturday, August 17)
Brentford vs Crystal Palace (Sunday, August 18)
Chelsea vs Manchester City (Sunday, August 18)
Leicester City vs Tottenham Hotspur (Monday, August 19)
Using the Opta Power Rankings, we can quantify how easy (or difficult) each team’s opening plan is.
As a reminder, these Power Rankings rate a truly enormous number of teams (over 12,700) around the world based on a system where the currently strongest team receives 100 points and the weakest receives zero.
Based on these scores, the teams are then ranked from strongest to weakest.
We focused on the Premier League and looked at the average Opta Power Rating of each team’s opponents to measure the difficulty of the games.
These ranged from Manchester City (the world’s leading team with an Opta Power Rating of 100.0, making them the toughest opponents to play against) to Southampton (ranked 153rd in the world with an Opta Power Rating of 81.4, making them the ‘easiest’ team to play against in England’s top flight).
This is how changes happen.
The first five games
This is great news for Arne Slot, as Liverpool’s first five games of the 2024–25 Premier League season are considered the easiest of all 20 teams.
A start at newly promoted Ipswich Town on the opening weekend is followed by a home game against Brentford at Anfield on Matchday 2. A difficult away game at Manchester United will be their biggest challenge early on, with Jürgen Klopp unable to lead Liverpool to victory in their last three away games at Old Trafford, including an FA Cup defeat last season. They then face easier games against Nottingham Forest (H) and Bournemouth (A).
London clubs Brentford and West Ham have had the toughest start, with their first five opponents in the 2024–25 Premier League season having the highest average Opta Power Rating.
Ipswich Town are getting a ‘welcome to the big league, mate’ message, with a terribly difficult start against Liverpool at home, followed by a trip to the Etihad Stadium to face reigning champions Man City next weekend.
Arsenal almost broke Man City’s dominance at the top of the table last season, but face a difficult start to the 2024/25 season. Based on the Opta Power Rating of their opponents, they have the fourth-toughest first five games, including back-to-back away games at rivals Tottenham and Man City on Matchdays 4 and 5. Ouch.
Manchester United are the first team in Premier League history to start a season with a home game for eight consecutive seasons. The team will open the season against Fulham at Old Trafford on Friday 16 August.
The first 10 games
Looking at the first ten games of the 2024–25 Premier League season, Wolves have had the toughest start.
Their opening trip to the Emirates Stadium to face Arsenal is just the start of a painful early phase, as they play their first four home games against teams that finished in the top seven last season: Chelsea (6th), Newcastle (7th), Liverpool (3rd) and Man City (1st).
Based on their first 10 games, Everton will be considered the club with the easiest start to the 2024–25 Premier League season as their opponents have the lowest average Opta Power Rating (85.7).
Sean Dyche’s team will face only two of last season’s top six teams in their first ten games – Tottenham (Matchday 2) and Aston Villa (Matchday 4). This season they will also face all three promoted teams.
Read more about Opta Analyst…
Who will win the Premier League title in 2024-25?
Which clubs qualify for the Champions League?
Who will fight for survival?
We answer these questions with our Premier League predictions for 2024-25 via our trusted Opta supercomputer.
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