The best and worst opening six in the Premier League
Every club’s first six fixtures, ranked by the model’s expected-goal difference rather than FPL’s 1–5 difficulty ratings.
Photo: Gabriel Magalhães, 2026 — Chensiyuan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The 2026-27 season kicks off on 21 August, and before you get anywhere near minutes models or captain EV, the calendar has already shaped most of your early decisions. With that in mind, we ranked every club’s GW1–6 run by average model λ-diff — team expected goals minus opponent expected goals — using odds-backed rates for GW1 and Dixon–Coles after that. Figures are from the 10 August run.
Worth knowing before you read the numbers: GW1 is priced differently from the rest of the run. The opening week uses bookmakers' odds, so it moves whenever the market does, while GW2 to GW6 come from the model's own team ratings, which barely shift across a preseason. In practice the GW1 figures are live and everything after them is a settled view of team strength.
Average expected-goal difference across GW1–6. Big clubs sit high partly because they are strong, not only because the calendar is soft — more on that below.
Avg λ-diff (team − opp) · Source: Layer A · as_of 2026-07-23 · GW1 odds, GW2–6 Dixon–Coles · Hover a bar for the value
The five best openings
Arsenal and Manchester City are well clear of the field. Both average roughly a full expected goal more than their opponents across the stretch, and each has three of the six coloured as outright mismatches (≥ +0.75 λ-diff).
1. Arsenal — the cleanest start in the division
Coventry (H), Villa (A), Chelsea (H), Sunderland (A), Brighton (A), Leeds (H). The three home games are the three biggest edges of the six, and they fall in GW1, GW3 and GW6. Even Chelsea at home is strongly favoured (+1.27) on current ratings.
| GW | Opp | H/A | Team λ | Opp λ | λ-diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Coventry | H | 2.71 | 0.47 | +2.24 |
| 2 | Aston Villa | A | 1.37 | 1.04 | +0.33 |
| 3 | Chelsea | H | 1.99 | 0.72 | +1.27 |
| 4 | Sunderland | A | 1.24 | 0.73 | +0.52 |
| 5 | Brighton | A | 1.40 | 1.00 | +0.40 |
| 6 | Leeds | H | 2.08 | 0.58 | +1.50 |
2. Man City — soft until Anfield
Bournemouth, Palace, Coventry, United, Sunderland, then Liverpool away. Five positive fixtures before the only negative one, though United away (+0.23) is close to even too. The Coventry home game is the single most lopsided λ-diff in the entire opening slate (+2.47).
| GW | Opp | H/A | Team λ | Opp λ | λ-diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bournemouth | H | 2.49 | 1.10 | +1.39 |
| 2 | Crystal Palace | A | 1.51 | 0.97 | +0.54 |
| 3 | Coventry | H | 2.93 | 0.46 | +2.47 |
| 4 | Man Utd | A | 1.47 | 1.24 | +0.23 |
| 5 | Sunderland | H | 1.93 | 0.59 | +1.33 |
| 6 | Liverpool | A | 1.41 | 1.49 | −0.08 |
Newcastle away first, which reads harder than the model finds it: Liverpool are favoured there (+0.42). Then Forest, Ipswich and Fulham, three clear mismatches in a row, before Bournemouth and City.
Front-loaded: Hull away and Ipswich home are huge (+1.33, +1.68). Then Everton, City, Fulham cool it off before Spurs at home.
Liverpool and Spurs early, then Bournemouth, Leeds, Hull, Coventry. Softens sharply after GW2. Second-easiest opponents by rating.
The five worst openings
The bottom three are the newly promoted sides: Coventry, Hull and Ipswich, all carrying weak-team priors in the model with no Premier League history this cycle. Even allowing for that uncertainty, the calendars are genuinely brutal.
20. Coventry City — Arsenal and City inside three weeks
Away to Arsenal on opening night, Hull at home, then away to Man City. Those two away trips alone average −2.3 λ-diff. Forest away and Newcastle at home finish a run with three hard mismatches and only one positive game (Hull).
| GW | Opp | H/A | Team λ | Opp λ | λ-diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | A | 0.47 | 2.71 | −2.24 |
| 2 | Hull | H | 1.21 | 0.84 | +0.37 |
| 3 | Man City | A | 0.46 | 2.93 | −2.47 |
| 4 | Brighton | H | 0.90 | 1.49 | −0.59 |
| 5 | Nott'm Forest | A | 0.62 | 1.97 | −1.35 |
| 6 | Newcastle | H | 0.93 | 1.64 | −0.71 |
19. Hull City — no soft landing
United at home to start, then Coventry, Villa, Chelsea away, Newcastle away, Everton. Four of six against top-half attack ratings; Chelsea and Newcastle away are both worse than −1.6.
| GW | Opp | H/A | Team λ | Opp λ | λ-diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Man Utd | H | 0.77 | 2.10 | −1.33 |
| 2 | Coventry | A | 0.84 | 1.21 | −0.37 |
| 3 | Aston Villa | H | 0.88 | 1.56 | −0.68 |
| 4 | Chelsea | A | 0.61 | 2.25 | −1.63 |
| 5 | Newcastle | A | 0.64 | 2.39 | −1.75 |
| 6 | Everton | H | 0.85 | 1.18 | −0.33 |
Sunderland home is even; then United, Liverpool, Palace, Everton, Fulham. Four games at ≤ −1.0 λ-diff.
Ipswich and Fulham are fine; Arsenal at home and City away in GW4–5 are anything but. The gentle opening and finish hide a nasty middle stretch.
Forest, Brentford, Brighton, Newcastle, Palace, then Arsenal — the second-hardest opponent slate in the league, with only Bournemouth facing tougher names.
Schedule vs strength
Average λ-diff rewards good teams as much as good schedules. If you strip that out and rank purely on opponent quality (the Dixon–Coles attack + defence of the six opponents), the story shifts.
| # | Club | Opp quality |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Everton | −0.158 |
| 2 | Newcastle | −0.125 |
| 3 | Man Utd | −0.079 |
Everton draw Palace, Bournemouth, United, Spurs, Ipswich, Hull — the gentlest set of names in the division. Newcastle and United also dodge most of the elite early.
| # | Club | Opp quality |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bournemouth | +0.338 |
| 2 | Leeds | +0.276 |
| 3 | Coventry City | +0.264 |
Bournemouth get City, Newcastle, Liverpool, and Chelsea inside six. Leeds and Coventry are next — Leeds without the excuse of being a new promoted side.
Interactive grid with opponent, home/away, and model λ for all 20 clubs.
FPL notes from the model
Premiums with a runway
Arsenal and City attackers get the greenest six-week windows in the model. Liverpool's is solid rather than spectacular: their best three fixtures are GW2 to GW4, and the run finishes with City at home.
United's two-week sugar rush
Hull and Ipswich give United the best GW1–2 pair in the league on λ-diff. Anyone templating United assets should plan for the Everton / City / Fulham cooling-off that follows.
Avoid the promoted stack early
Coventry, Hull, and Ipswich combine weak priors with hard calendars. A £4.0m promoted defender always looks tempting in a launch draft, but it's worth resisting until the ratings have some real minutes behind them.
The mid-table shopping list
Everton's opponent slate is the softest in the division, and Forest and Palace sit near neutral with mixed but manageable names. Handy places to shop if you want rotation cover without paying big-six prices.