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.
Of course, every team has to play the other 19 teams twice — so arguing over fixtures is seemingly redundant, but understanding when the tougher games of the season are — and also how the season draws to a close (something the Foxes have struggled to deal with over the last two campaigns) is incredibly important.
As for difficult runs, Leicester City face three tough clusters throughout the 38-game season. The first of which is in late October (the 30th) and stretches three matches to the 20th November — with a planned international break in the middle. The Foxes play; Arsenal (H), Leeds United (A), and Chelsea (H), in what I’ve calculated to be 11 points of difficulty, or; “3”, “3”, “5” on the ratings individually. The chances of playing two games with a difficulty rating of “3” back-to-back is just under 7% — when looking specifically at two game integers, so over an entire season they’ll occur fairly often.
Many Leicester City fans have already noticed the tantalising Christmas period, which has once again treated the Foxes to playing the previous two Champions; Liverpool and Manchester City, back-to-back on the Boxing Day and following fixture. For what it’s worth, the chances of playing two matches with a difficulty rating of “5” is 4.4% — again, when looking purely at two fixtures. Of course, you have 37 different two game pairings throughout a season, so it’s expected that every team will play back-to-back games versus top four sides. It might feel like it’s only Leicester City being given fixtures like this, but thankfully, that’s not the case.
Prior to the games against Manchester City (A) and Liverpool (H), the Foxes also face some difficult fixtures. They play two “3” difficulty matches starting with Tottenham Hotspur (H) on the 14th of December, and then Everton (A) before playing the Citizens on Boxing Day — giving this run of four games a difficulty rating of 16. I think, but mainly hope, that Brendan Rodgers’ side will relish the opportunity of facing such tough opposition around the festive period as it allows for an easier set of fixtures towards the latter stages of the competition.
The third and final run of difficult fixtures for Leicester City is their longest and — arguably — hardest of the 2021/22 campaign (primarily due to the consistent quality of opposition). Starting on the 9th of February, versus Liverpool (A) the Foxes then have a stretch of five games that accumulate a difficulty rating of 15 (an average of 3). When you add in the game with Liverpool that’s a combined difficulty rating of 20 over six games — with an average of 3.33 per game. This run includes; West Ham United (H), Wolverhampton Wanderers (A), Chelsea (A), Leeds United (H), and ends with Arsenal (A) on the 12th March.
Interestingly, I ran the maths on how likely it is a team faces a run of six games — at any point of the season — that is as difficult as that, and it’s just over 19%. There will only be, on average, four teams out of the twenty that endure a run of fixtures with that degree of difficulty. So, as a Leicester City fan, I think there’s enough evidence to feel slightly unlucky in that regard.
Despite this, I think an interesting subset of fixtures to outline are the games that Leicester City play directly after their UEFA Europa League group stage fixtures. Of course, the Foxes will want to replicate their form from last seasons campaign and progress into the knockout stages — and perhaps aim for the Quarter-Finals or even further, but in terms of guaranteed games there’s only the group stages thus far.
I don’t think the games proceeding European fixtures could’ve been any kinder to Leicester City, facing; Brighton & Hove Albion (A), Crystal Palace (A), Brentford (A), Leeds United (A), Watford (H), and Newcastle United (H). Under the points system I’ve devised for scoring difficulty of fixtures, that is; “1”, “1”, “0”, “3”, “0”, and “1” — averaging out at 1 per game. If Brendan Rodgers is forced into rotating his starting XI between competitions, he has ample room to do so, with exciting acquisitions on the horizons, Leicester can balance European football with a higher degree of comfort — in comparison to this campaign.
The entire campaign looks to have the “harder” games of the season fairly nicely distributed for LCFC, especially when considering the run towards the end of the season. To finish of the competition, the Foxes play; Everton (H), Watford (A), and Southampton (H) in May — a more manageable task for points when compared with last seasons’ final three games versus; Manchester United (A), Chelsea (A), and Tottenham Hotspur (H).
Overall, I’m of the belief that the Foxes have been given a favourable set of fixtures for the upcoming campaign. Yes, every team will face the same opposition over the course of a season, but there’s definitely “nicer” sets of fixtures and I’d suggest that Brendan Rodgers and the Foxes have been given just that.