Football writer Alex Keble looks into which teams – on paper – have the best fixtures from now until the end of the season.
When the Premier League resumes at the beginning of April we will officially enter The Run In.
While Liverpool are favourites to win the Premier League title, the destination of the Premier League Trophy come the end of May is just one of many things still to play for across the final nine Matchweeks.
The European spots are to be decided, while teams at the bottom of the table will hope to avoid relegation.
Here, we use the Fixture Difficulty Ratings (FDR) to compare each team’s remaining matches.
The FDR is a Fantasy Premier League tool based on a complex algorithm that generates a rank for the perceived difficulty of a team’s opponent. Fixtures are ranked from 1 (easy) to 5 (hard).
The FDR suggests that Nottingham Forest, Manchester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers have the joint-best fixtures remaining, while Everton have the toughest.
Average FDR of teams’ remaining matches
| Team | Position | Total FDR | Ave. FDR per match |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nottingham Forest | 3 | 24 | 2.67 |
| Man City | 5 | 24 | 2.67 |
| Wolves | 17 | 24 | 2.67 |
| Newcastle* | 6 | 28 | 2.80 |
| Liverpool | 1 | 26 | 2.89 |
| Arsenal | 2 | 26 | 2.89 |
| Brighton | 7 | 26 | 2.89 |
| Bournemouth | 10 | 26 | 2.89 |
| West Ham | 16 | 26 | 2.89 |
| Ipswich | 18 | 26 | 2.89 |
| Aston Villa | 9 | 27 | 3.0 |
| Spurs | 14 | 27 | 3.0 |
| Southampton | 20 | 27 | 3.0 |
| Leicester | 19 | 28 | 3.11 |
| Chelsea | 4 | 29 | 3.22 |
| Man Utd | 13 | 29 | 3.22 |
| Crystal Palace* | 12 | 33 | 3.3 |
| Fulham | 8 | 30 | 3.33 |
| Brentford | 11 | 31 | 3.44 |
| Everton | 15 | 32 | 3.56 |
*Newcastle and Crystal Palace have 10 matches left. All other teams have nine
Man City and Forest looking good for Champions League
Based on FDR, Man City (2.67) and Nottingham Forest (2.67) have the joint-easiest fixtures remaining in the season, which of course bodes very well for their respective UEFA Champions League hopes.
Man City’s fixtures in particular look straightforward, with trips to Old Trafford and Craven Cottage being the most difficult away matches they have left to play.
Pep Guardiola’s team could do with a stable period through April and May as they seek to salvage a disappointing campaign. On this evidence, they should get it.
Forest, meanwhile, still have to travel to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Villa Park, before hosting Chelsea on the final day, yet these fixtures are counterbalanced by several good home matches.
The Champions League dream is getting close.
Chelsea’s top-four place threatened by tough fixtures
It could be a difficult end to the season for Chelsea, given only Everton (3.56) and Fulham (3.33) have a higher FDR average than Enzo Maresca’s side (3.22).
Much has been made of the waning form of Cole Palmer – and the team as a whole. They’ve collected just six points from their last five matches and although they are currently fourth in the table, they only have four more points than ninth-placed Aston Villa.
It’s far from ideal, then, that Chelsea’s campaign ends with a horrid last four fixtures: Liverpool (H), Newcastle United (A), Manchester United (H), and Forest (A).
By the looks of things, their race for Champions League football will go to the wire.
Villa and Fulham have hardest matches of European hopefuls
After Chelsea, Villa (3.0) and Fulham (3.33) have the most difficult upcoming matches as the wide-open battle for European places continues.
Fulham’s last four home matches are against Liverpool, Chelsea, Everton, and Man City, while they also still have to travel to Villa Park and the Emirates Stadium. Their flirtation with the top eight looks set to be a brief one.
Villa will have hoped to keep climbing, but as well as balancing Champions League and FA Cup football this season, six of their last nine Premier League fixtures are against fellow European hopefuls, before they end the campaign against Spurs and then Man Utd.
This is all good news for Newcastle (2.8), Brighton & Hove Albion (2.89), and AFC Bournemouth (2.89), all of whom are in the top 10 and have remaining fixtures below the Premier League FDR average of 3.02.
Wolves could pull away from relegation battle
The nine-point gap that separates Wolves from the bottom three is already daunting for fans of Ipswich Town, Leicester City and Southampton.
Unfortunately for those three teams, the FDR scores suggest the gap may only widen over the final nine Matchweeks – and possibly insurmountably over the next five.
Wolves have what appears to be one of the kindest sets of fixtures, with their next five rounds including West Ham United (H), Ipswich (A), and Leicester (H).
By contrast, Ipswich have Chelsea (A), Arsenal (H) and Newcastle (A) within their next five and Leicester have Man City (A), Newcastle (H) and Liverpool (H) in the same time period.
Things aren’t looking good for the three clubs promoted from the Championship last season.
Europa League clubs’ fatigue could be compounded by hard PL matches
Like Chelsea, the other two clubs with difficult Thursday-night commitments – Man Utd and Spurs – also score highly on FDR, with their remaining Premier League fixtures given scores of 3.22 and 3.0 respectively.
United’s FDR is the joint-fifth hardest in the division, which is hardly what Ruben Amorim needs right now after a bruising start to life at Old Trafford.
What’s more, if Amorim’s side go deep in Europe, their Premier League matches will feel even harder after reduced recovery and training time, raising the prospect of United breaking their record-low points haul (currently 58 in 2021/22) by 10 points or more. They have 37 points now, with nine matches to go.
Spurs, meanwhile, are 10 points shy of the top half and seem unlikely to break into it. Their fixture list includes away trips to Chelsea, Liverpool and Villa.
