The three clubs coming up to the Premier League this season - Coventry City, Hull City and Ipswich Town - face daunting opening schedules that could set the tone for their battles against relegation.
Coventry's return to the top flight begins with a trip to Arsenal, the reigning champions and currently ranked as the world's No 1 side by Opta. Their difficulties do not end there, as their next away assignment takes them to face Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium. Sandwiched between those two daunting away days is a home fixture against fellow promoted club Hull City, a fixture that carries extra significance given both meetings between the two sides last season finished goalless.
Hull's own start to the campaign is similarly unforgiving. They open with Manchester United visiting the MKM Stadium before welcoming Aston Villa in their third match. While neither United nor Villa qualified for Europe last season, Hull's challenges intensify in weeks four and five as they take on Chelsea and Newcastle, meaning all of their opening five fixtures pit them against sides considerably above their perceived level heading into the first international break.
Wage bill comparisons paint an equally bleak picture for the promoted teams. All three clubs rank among the seven sides facing the toughest cumulative opposition wage bills across their opening five matches, reinforcing the scale of the challenge regardless of how one chooses to measure the strength of opponents.
Ipswich Town appear to have been handed the gentlest introduction of the three by Opta's average opponent rating system, yet even their schedule carries weight. Their opening three matches come against Sunderland, Manchester United and Liverpool - all clubs that finished in the top seven of the Premier League last season.
While conventional wisdom suggests that matches against elite opposition are consequence-free for newly promoted clubs, with survival instead determined by results against direct relegation rivals, recent Premier League history tells a more complicated story. Leeds United collected an impressive 10 points from their matches against last season's top seven, just five behind champions Arsenal despite playing two fewer games. Sunderland, who finished seventh, took nine points from sides above them, while even relegated Burnley managed eight points across 14 meetings with the division's elite.
The pattern looks starkly different for the six promoted clubs across the two previous seasons, all of whom went straight back down. Ipswich earned six points against the top seven in 2024-25, with Leicester City and Southampton managing just one apiece that season. The trend continued the year before, as Luton Town took five points while Sheffield United and Burnley combined for just three points against the division's best sides. Remarkably, each of those three-club cohorts earned fewer combined points against the top seven than either Leeds or Sunderland managed alone last term.
Whether these early fixtures ultimately prove decisive remains uncertain. Burnley's eight points against elite opposition last season counted for little in the context of their overall relegation, having taken just 14 points from their remaining 24 matches. Nevertheless, difficult starts tend to amplify pressure on managers from the outset, regardless of what is expected of their clubs. For Coventry, Hull and Ipswich, the fixture list has offered little sympathy as they prepare for life back in the Premier League.
Based on reporting from The Guardian.