The Premier League schedule dropped and the analytics crowd got straight to work. Opta power ratings now have a number for everything, including how hard your favorite team’s first five matches actually are. For Leeds United, the news is not great but it’s also not the worst in the league.
The Whites open at Nottingham Forest on August 22, then host Brentford the following weekend. Three of their first five are at Elland Road, which sounds nice until you look at who’s visiting.
Opta’s system assigns a power rating from zero to 100 to every club, with Arsenal sitting at the top. Hull City brings up the rear at 82.2. Using those numbers, they ranked every team’s opening five-game stretch. Leeds landed somewhere in the middle. The full list published by the Yorkshire Evening Post shows a few surprise names near the top of the difficulty chart.
Manchester United drew the hardest opening run
Somebody upstairs does not like Ruben Amorim’s fixture list. United sit first in opponent difficulty with an average rating of 89.3. Their first five: Hull away, Ipswich at home, Everton away, Manchester City at home, Fulham away. That City game in week four is the kind of thing that makes a manager reach for the aspirin early.
Newcastle checks in second at 89.9. The Magpies open with Liverpool at home, then go to Tottenham, host Bournemouth, travel to Leeds, and close with Hull at St. James’ Park. That first month is a meat grinder.
Liverpool ranked third at 90.7. Arne Slot’s side visits Newcastle in week one, hosts Nottingham Forest, goes to Ipswich, comes home to face Fulham, then heads to Bournemouth. Not a lot of easy Saturdays in there.
Brentford and Crystal Palace sit in the same neighborhood
The Bees landed fourth at 90.8, which makes sense when you see their slate: a trip to Leeds, home matches against Tottenham, Sunderland, and Chelsea, plus a visit to Bournemouth. No automatic wins anywhere in that stretch.
Palace is fifth, also at 90.8. They open at Everton, host Manchester City, go to Fulham, host Ipswich, and travel to Leeds. Oliver Glasner’s squad will know exactly where they stand after that.
Everton rounds out the top six, matching the 90.8 threshold. The Toffees face Palace at home, Bournemouth away, Manchester United at home, Tottenham away, and Ipswich at home.
For context, the power ratings come from a massive data set tracking every club’s strength relative to the rest of the league. They are not predictions. They are cold numbers on a 100-point scale. But they do give a pretty clear picture of which teams have to earn their points from the jump.
Leeds, thankfully, is not among those six. The full chart published by the Yorkshire Evening Post shows a handful of clubs with significantly friendlier starts. And in a league where momentum matters as much as talent, that matters.
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