Can Arteta navigate the nightmare opening schedule to mount an Arsenal title challenge?

For the third successive campaign, Arsenal and Mikel Arteta fell just short of clinching the Premier League crown, as the North London side once again ended the season in second place, while Liverpool celebrated title glory.

Despite entering the 2024–25 season as firm favourites to pounce on any Manchester City misstep, the Gunners’ efforts were hindered by multiple setbacks—ranging from crucial squad members succumbing to injuries, questionable decisions during the transfer period, and an array of disappointing performances—all of which contributed to Liverpool pulling away in the standings.

Looking ahead to the 2025–26 season, Arsenal are determined to transform near-misses into triumphs. However, reigniting their pursuit of league dominance will require them to navigate a hectic set of opening fixtures from the outset.

Here, Football Talk takes a deep dive into Arsenal’s opening fixtures and some key opening day stats in recent years and assesses how Mikel Arteta can navigate through their nightmare opening fixtures to mount a potent title challenge.

Fixtures overview

It’s fair to say that Arsenal’s first five fixtures could provoke more than a few gasps among fans with Arsenal tickets, given the daunting nature of the schedule that lies ahead.

Despite Manchester United’s fluctuating form, travelling to Old Trafford remains one of the most challenging assignments in the Premier League, and Mikel Arteta’s men are due there right out of the gate. That task is swiftly followed by a showdown at Anfield, before returning to North London for back-to-back home clashes with Nottingham Forest and Manchester City. This demanding stretch leaves no margin for early complacency.

By Matchday 6, the challenge continues with another away day at St. James’ Park against Newcastle United, a ground that has recently proven unkind to the Gunners. Although the subsequent run of four fixtures is marginally more manageable, it still ranks as the eighth most challenging sequence across the division.

Arsenal’s opening six fixtures:

• Man Utd [A]
• Leeds [H]
• Liverpool [A]
• Nottingham Forest [H]
• Man City [H]
• Newcastle United [A]

As was the case in the previous campaign, their European campaign begins amid domestic turbulence. The expanded Champions League group phase kicks off between September 16 and 18, placing City and their opening continental fixture in the same congested week—an actual test of depth and focus.

Things hardly settle down after the autumn international window either. The north London derby takes centre stage on November 22 and as always, Spurs tickets for the game will be hard to come by. The NLD comes just before Arsenal tackle Chelsea, Brentford, and Aston Villa in a packed post-break run.

Over the festive period, Arsenal will once again play on December 27—this time hosting Brighton & Hove Albion—while skipping Boxing Day and resting over both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, with meetings against Villa and Bournemouth instead fixed for December 30 and January 3, respectively.

If Arsenal remain in the title picture come spring, they could profit from a travel-friendly finale. Their last five league outings all take place within London—three home games against Newcastle United, Fulham, and Burnley, and two short away journeys to face West Ham United and Crystal Palace, with the latter closing out their campaign.

Can Mikel Arteta navigate through nightmare opening fixtures?

Arsenal’s prospects of sprinting out of the gates appear increasingly slim, particularly when compared to rivals such as Chelsea or Manchester City, both of whom have significantly more accommodating opening schedules and could set the early standard in the standings.

Once again, that could leave Mikel Arteta’s side playing catch-up. The question now becomes: what’s the minimum points return needed from their opening five and ten matches to stay within striking distance? A look back at the previous campaign offers perspective. Arsenal’s start to 2024-25 was also among the league’s most testing, yet they avoided defeat in all five of those encounters. However, not all results were ideal—they were held at the Etihad Stadium by Manchester City and dropped further points at home against Brighton. That stoppage-time leveller from John Stones early in the season proved more decisive than it seemed at the time.

Despite coming through those initial five games with 11 points, Arsenal were still fourth in the table, trailing eventual champions Liverpool by a single point. While that might have looked respectable on paper, it planted them in a precarious position from which to launch a title assault. Historically, 88 different sides have opened a top-flight campaign by collecting 11 or more points from their first five fixtures. Of those, only 21 ultimately lifted the trophy—and when narrowing the scope to clubs that recorded exactly 11 points, only four were crowned champions: Blackburn in 1994-95, Manchester United in both 2000-01 and 2010-11, and Leicester City in their fairytale 2015-16 season.

Over the last 15 years, the teams that ended the year on top averaged 12.1 points from their opening five league clashes. Arsenal’s total last term was close, but even minor early stumbles can carry lasting consequences.

Zooming out to the broader picture, Arsenal’s first 10 games in 2024-25 were evaluated as the seventh most difficult in the league—an assessment eerily similar to this year’s draw, which is ranked the eighth toughest. Yet it was arguably during that exact portion of the campaign that their title bid began to unravel. A rough patch saw them go four games without a win, suffering losses to Bournemouth and Newcastle United, while being held by Liverpool and Chelsea.

As a result, they amassed only 18 points across their opening 10 fixtures and found themselves sitting fifth, seven adrift of Liverpool, who were already asserting themselves at the top. That total of 18 has historically not been a good omen: just three times in the competition’s history has a side gone on to win the title after posting that return at the 10-game mark—Manchester United in 1992-93 and 2002-03, and Manchester City in the 2020-21 campaign.

To avoid trailing in the race once more, Arsenal will need to significantly better last season’s points haul. On average, the eventual champions in the Premier League have banked 22.6 points by the end of their 10th match, highlighting just how critical an intense opening spell can be.

Starting sluggishly doesn’t just set an ominous tone—it forces teams into situations where only extraordinary winning streaks can compensate for the early deficit. Looking back at those rare cases where clubs turned around a slow start, United strung together three separate unbeaten streaks of 10 or more games during the 1992-93 season, ending the season with seven straight wins. In 2002-03, they concluded with an 18-match unbeaten sequence, including 15 victories. City, meanwhile, produced a staggering 15-game winning run between December 2020 and March 2021. These are the levels Arsenal must reach if they stumble out of the gate once more.

That’s not to suggest a lightning-quick start guarantees glory—far from it. Three points on the first weekend count the same as three on the final day. Arsenal themselves are a reminder of that: they accumulated a record-setting 50 points from their first 19 matches in the 2022-23 season, yet still finished five points short of City.

Nevertheless, history tends to favour those who gain momentum early. The challenge ahead is clear—will Arsenal finally manage to do that in 2025-26?

Some interesting opening day stats:

• This marks Arsenal’s 122nd campaign in the league—from the prior 121 openers, they’ve recorded 57 wins, drawn 23 times, and suffered 41 defeats. No title-winning season has ever begun with a defeat.

• Arsenal have come out victorious in the opening Premier League fixture in the past three seasons—defeating Crystal Palace (2022/23), Nottingham Forest (2023/24), and Wolverhampton Wanderers (2024/25). The last time they secured a win in four successive season openers was between 2002 and 2005, a run of five straight wins.

• Entering the 34th Premier League season, Arsenal, ever-present in the competition, have played on all 33 opening weekends—winning 19 and drawing six. Their 1.91 points-per-game average across this period exceeds the 1.58 of their overall league history.

• The Gunners have not recorded a draw on matchday one in the past 13 years, with the last being a 0-0 result against Sunderland at Emirates Stadium.

• Whenever Arsenal begin the season with a draw, the campaign usually fares well—their average finish across six drawn openers is 3.5, better than the 3.9 following wins and 4.6 after defeats.

• Arsenal have registered 58 goals in Premier League opening fixtures—their highest-scoring was the 6-1 demolition of Everton at Goodison Park in August 2009. The Toffees, Newcastle, and Liverpool are the clubs they’ve faced most on opening day—eight times each.

• Bukayo Saka, after scoring in back-to-back season openers versus Nottingham Forest and Wolves, could become just the third Gunner to score on matchday one in three successive campaigns, following Thierry Henry and Geoff Strong.

• Arsenal haven’t met Manchester United on the first day of a league season since 1989–90—a game in which David Rocastle scored during a 4-1 loss.

• The North Londoners are beginning their Premier League campaign away from home for the fifth time in seven years, while Manchester United are starting with a home match for the ninth straight season—the longest run in English top-flight history.

• Arsenal have come out on top in five of their last six season openers, including the most recent three.

• Arsenal have suffered just two defeats in their previous 14 league clashes with United, winning eight and drawing four. They are unbeaten in their last five games, winning four and drawing one.

• Across Arsenal’s last 18 Premier League visits to Old Trafford, they’ve won just twice—the victories coming in November 2020 and May 2024 (D6 L10 overall in that span).

• A goal on matchday one from Saka this time around would make him only the second Arsenal player, after Thierry Henry, to score in three successive Premier League openers.