Premier League Fixture Difficulty vs Results: Which Teams Have Defied Expectations?

We look back at pre-season expectations for Premier League clubs’ first five matches and assess how well they’ve done relative to the supposed difficulty of their fixture schedules.

Five matchdays is all it takes to dramatically alter perspectives and expectations in the Premier League.

Think back to pre-season, that fantastical time of renewal, hope and excitement. Intrusive thoughts about the campaign ahead barely register for most. Instead, brain power is dedicated to thinking about what could be achieved.

Reality can come at you quickly, however.

The 2026-27 Premier League season may only be in relative infancy, but pre-season already feels like a long time ago now, especially for certain clubs.

A good or bad start isn’t always indicative of what’s to come, though. There can be a whole host of reasons for either, and most won’t be permanent. For instance, fixture difficulty is something you cannot ignore – not every start to the season is equal.

On the eve of 2026-27, we used the Opta Power Rankings to determine which clubs had the easiest and toughest opening schedules.

Now, we can look back on those findings to see how they correlate with the real Premier League table after five matchdays.

Pre-Season Fixture Difficulty vs Real Table After MD5

Generally, there is a loose correlation between fixture difficulty and the points teams earned across the first five matchdays of the season.

For example, the 10 teams deemed to have the easier schedules averaged 8.2 points, whereas the 10 with the toughest have averaged 5.2. But it’s the extremes that are most interesting to look at.

Manchester City lead the fledgling table, of course, having won their first five games. Considering they came into the season with a fair amount of uncertainty surrounding them due to player churn and Pep Guardiola’s exit, their start to the campaign – on the field at least – couldn’t have gone much better.

Ithiel Piñero / Data Analyst

But it must be pointed out that, according to the pre-season Opta Power Rankings, they had the second-easiest start with an average opponent rating of 91.4. Their opening slate wasn’t without challenges; beating Manchester United away from home despite having 10 men for over an hour was impressive, though most would’ve expected them to take close to maximum points from Bournemouth (H), Crystal Palace (A), Coventry (H) and Sunderland (H).

Liverpool were deemed to have the easiest schedule (91.2). Nine points from those five games probably left most fans slightly underwhelmed, though we must remember the Power Rankings can’t exactly account for elements like adapting to a managerial change with Andoni Iraola now in the hot seat.

In terms of most disappointing start to the season, Man Utd are certainly up there. The Opta Power Rankings suggested they had the third-easiest schedule, but they’ve amassed just five points.

A Matchday 1 defeat to promoted Hull City was alarming. They did at least follow that up with a 5-2 defeat of Ipswich Town at Old Trafford, but that remains their only victory. Sitting 12^th after statistically the third-easiest start is understandably concerning.

Brighton are another of the outliers, but for completely different reasons to Man Utd.

With an opening slate of Aston Villa (H), Chelsea (A), Leeds (H), Coventry (A) and Arsenal (H), any nervousness from supporters would’ve been logical. The Opta Power Rankings assessed that as the fourth-hardest start.

But they took 10 points from those games, including an immensely impressive 3-0 dismantling of the champions in their last game before the international break that left them third in the table.

One caveat is that they have spent more time (87 minutes) this season playing against 10 men than any other club, though in fairness to them, they were at least 2-0 up when Villa and Coventry had a man sent off.

If Brighton have been the story of the season so far, then Hull have at least given them a run for their money.

In pre-season, Hull were just below Brighton in terms of difficulty of their opening schedule (93.0 average opponent rating) – and they were widely written off as being practically cannon fodder following a surprise promotion. Five games later, however, and they have a very respectable eight points having beaten Man Utd (H) and Coventry (A), and drawn with Chelsea (A) and Aston Villa (H).

Many expected the worst for them. Instead, Hull’s start suggests they’ve had the most successful adaptation to the top flight of the three promoted sides.

At the bottom of the table, Tottenham’s two points looks a measly total from their first five fixtures. With an average opponent rating of 92.3, that was deemed pretty much mid-table. But the best they’ve managed to muster was 0-0 draws with Nottingham Forest (A) and Everton (H).

Otherwise, most of the teams towards the bottom of the table were at the higher end of the scale with respect to pre-season fixture difficulty. Fulham, Sunderland, Coventry and Bournemouth all had average opponent ratings of at least 93.0, and none of them have managed more than four points.

Pre-Season Fixture Difficulty vs Expected Points

Points don’t always tell the whole story, however, especially when looking over such short periods. In a five-game spell, merely turning one draw into an additional win via a fortunate own goal or a lucky deflection can change the outlook for many clubs.

Expected points (xPts), then, allows us to build a table that in some ways is more reflective of team performance.

The xPts model simulates the number of goals scored by each side in each match based on the expected goals (xG) value of every shot taken. It then uses those simulated goal totals to determine the outcome of the match, whether that is a win, draw or defeat. Each match is simulated 10,000 times. The xPts for each team can then be calculated based on the proportion of simulations they win, draw or lose.

It’s not an exact science. Expected goals data doesn’t account for every factor at play during a match, including game state and dangerous periods of possession that don’t result in shots. But it can give us some interesting additional context on what we have seen across the opening five matchdays.

The point here, though, isn’t to just look at xPts compared to points – we did that last week – but rather to see how effectively they performed in relation to the standard of their opposition.

For example, Newcastle had one of the easier opening schedules and did reasonably well, taking eight points in total. But according to xG data, Newcastle were only worth 4.01 xPts, the lowest in the division.

Ithiel Piñero / Data Analyst

That suggests they rode their luck to a considerable degree over the opening weeks; if they were to start earning points at a rate closer to their xPts, Newcastle would quickly have to start looking over their shoulders.

Crystal Palace’s xPts total wasn’t much better (4.78) despite also having one of the kinder schedules. They won just four points, so under their xPts, which doesn’t exactly bode well for when a tougher run comes along.

On the flip side, it might be argued there have been positive signs from some of the other struggling teams. Bournemouth (6.95) and Sunderland (7.64) are around mid-table in the xPts table despite having two of the toughest opening schedules; if they can maintain their performance levels, perhaps they’ll start to climb once their fixture lists become a little more inviting.

Otherwise, as the scatter chart above highlights, there was a correlation between xPts outputs and fixture difficulty.

That can only take a team so far, though. Expected points will count for nothing at the end of the season.

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