Leicester: The most important fixtures of the 2021/22 season

The Premier League fixtures list for the upcoming season have been announced, with every fan scouring through the produced graphics hoping for an “easier” set of games. To understand how easy or difficult Leicester City’s fixtures are in terms of streaks, I devised a fairly simple point scheme, and ran the numbers.

When the Foxes play a team that finished inside the “top four” from last season; one of Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, and Liverpool, then I’ve scored that fixture a difficulty rating of “5” — these are considered the hardest games regardless of being home or away.

The fixtures against teams that resided in the “top half” from last season but outside the “top four” such as; West Ham United, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Leeds United, and Everton, I’ve given a fixture difficulty rating of “3”. The teams that finished in the “bottom half” from last season; Aston Villa, Newcastle United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Crystal Palace, Southampton, Brighton, and Burnley, all have a difficulty rating of “1”.

Lastly, the newly promoted teams; Norwich City, Watford, and Brentford — somewhat unknown entities (particularly Brentford) in terms of how they’ll perform, have all been scored with a difficulty rating of “0”. This isn’t to suggest they’ll provide no challenge to the opposition, it’s just too early to understand how they’ll fare — as for Norwich and Watford, they’re both renowned for “yo-yo’ing” between the Premier League and the Championship, so any over-performance is unlikely.