Comparing Title challenger ends of season

How does the remaining schedule for Arsenal, Manchester City, and Liverpool look

The race for the title is very tight.

When I ran my model after the latest run of matches it came up with the bunch very close and Liverpool, Manchester City, and Arsneal all separated by less than 2 points on average for the rest of the year.

My model is more bullish on Arsenal than others but anywhere you go to look right now and things are CLOSE.

What this means is that the remaining schedule and who might have a less taxing finish could make the difference in a tight race. I think this is something that we will be interested in tracking the rest of the year so I made a handy chart that I can update easily to watch things as they develop.

(Edit 2/27/202 the original post had an error on the Chelsea match rating, it has been updated above)

This is a handy way to see during each match period who, where, and how hard each match is for each team (the rating comes from my team model and adjusts for Home/Away).

Arsenal have the fewest potential matches to play, having crashed out of the FA Cup, they could still have two matches affected by it, with both Chelsea and Wolves matches on dates where the FA Cup will be played. They also have potential Champions League matches but they need to focus on overturning the 1 goal deficit they face right now.

Overall they have one tough League match (Manchester City away) and three tricky matches (Brighton away, Aston Villa home, Tottenham away). The other matches Arsenal should be pretty big favorites in.

Manchester City have a busy schedule and it would not be surprising if they played most of these advancing in both the Champions League and FA Cup deep. That could see them play potentially every midweek after the international break to the end of the season.

They have a couple of huge matches against their rivals for the title that will be major odds movers. They have a derby and a couple of other tricky matches but the largest factor might be congestion after they are done playing Liverpool and Arsenal.

Liverpool have the most matches on their schedule. They could be playing twice a week from now until the FA Cup final if they advance in the Europa League and FA Cup to the end. They have the “easiest” average rating but they have a lot of games and have been dealing with fitness issues as the games have piled up for them.

Outside of Manchester City coming to Anfield they have just one match (Aston Villa away) that is rated as significantly harder than an “average” Premier League team.

It isn’t quite the start of the “run-in” but the finish line is in sight and with things as close as they are, every match will matter.