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

We look back at pre-season expectations forPremier Leagueclubs' 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.