The 2026-27 Premier League season opens on Friday night with the champions at home to a club that has not played in the top flight since 2001. Coventry City won the Championship with 95 points and finished 11 clear of Ipswich Town in second. Arsenal won the Premier League with 85, seven clear of Manchester City. Closing that gap is the first thing the fixture list asked of them.
The other two promoted clubs were treated no more gently. Hull City, back after nine years away, host Manchester United on Saturday lunchtime, and Ipswich host Sunderland the same afternoon. United finished third last season and Sunderland seventh, so all three of the promoted clubs begin against a side from last season's top seven.
It does not ease off. Coventry's next away trip is to Manchester City, who finished second. Hull's third game brings Aston Villa, fourth, and weeks four and five bring Chelsea and Newcastle. Ipswich go to Manchester United in week two and host Liverpool, fifth, in week three. Measured on the wage bills of their opponents rather than on last season's finishing places, all three still sit among the seven hardest opening sets in the division.
The free hit that isn't one