With just eight matches remaining in the 2025–26 Premier League season, the title race has reached its most intense stage. Arsenal currently sit seven points clear at the top of the table, chasing their first league crown since the historic 2003–04 “Invincibles” season. Meanwhile, reigning champions Manchester City remain firmly in pursuit and hold a game in hand that could cut the gap to four points. BetVictor, the well-known online casino and sportsbook, currently have Arsenal as 2/9 favourites, suggesting it would take quite a big collapse from here, but history suggests that is entirely possible.
The central question now is simple: who has the easier run-in?
By examining fixture difficulty, home and away form, previous results, predictive models, and historical precedent, we can build a clearer picture of which side holds the advantage heading into the final stretch.
Remaining Fixtures
First, let’s look at the schedules.
Arsenal’s remaining matches
- Everton (H)
- Bournemouth (H)
- Manchester City (A)
- Newcastle (H)
- Fulham (H)
- West Ham (A)
- Burnley (H)
- Crystal Palace (A)
Manchester City’s remaining matches
- West Ham (A)
- Crystal Palace (H)
- Chelsea (A)
- Arsenal (H)
- Burnley (A)
- Everton (A)
- Brentford (H)
- Bournemouth (A)
- Aston Villa (H)
At first glance, both sides face tricky encounters, but City’s schedule contains more fixtures against teams currently competing in the upper half of the table.
1. The Opta Power Rankings
One way to measure fixture difficulty is through the Opta Power Rankings, which rate every club in world football on a scale from 0 to 100 based on performance and strength.
In this system, Arsenal are currently ranked number one with a score of 100, with other teams scaled relative to them.
By averaging the ratings of each opponent left to play, analysts can estimate the overall difficulty of a team’s remaining fixtures.
- Arsenal’s remaining opponents: average rating 90.2
- Manchester City’s remaining opponents: average rating 91.4
The difference may appear small, but across a run-in of eight or nine matches it suggests that Manchester City face slightly stronger opposition overall.
City still must play several challenging sides including Chelsea, Aston Villa, Brentford and the title clash with Arsenal.
In contrast, Arsenal’s schedule appears more forgiving, with matches against struggling teams like Burnley and West Ham United in the closing weeks.
2. Home vs Away Performance
Fixture difficulty isn’t only about the opponent—it also depends on where the match is played.
To account for this, analysts compared each opponent’s points per game (PPG) in the relevant venue.
For example:
- Arsenal host Everton, so Everton’s away form matters.
- Manchester City visit Everton later in the season, meaning Everton’s home form becomes the relevant metric.
When those venue-specific PPG figures are averaged across all remaining matches:
- Arsenal opponents’ average PPG: 1.20
- Manchester City opponents’ average PPG: 1.46
Once again, the numbers favour Arsenal. Their remaining opponents tend to perform worse in the conditions they’ll face, while City encounter teams that collect more points in the corresponding home or away settings.
3. Last Season’s Results
Another approach is to examine how each team performed in the same fixtures last season.
Excluding matches involving newly promoted Burnley, the comparable games tell an interesting story:
- Manchester City: 19 points from 8 matches
- Arsenal: 14 points from 7 matches
If those results were replicated exactly this year, Arsenal would still win the title—but by only two points.
That projection highlights how narrow the margins could become if City reproduce their usual late-season form.
4. The Opta Supercomputer Prediction
Statistical models offer perhaps the most comprehensive outlook.
The Opta supercomputer has simulated the remainder of the season 10,000 times, factoring in team strength, fixtures, form, and probability.
Its latest projections give Arsenal a 94.4% chance of winning the Premier League title.
In other words, the model believes the Gunners are overwhelming favourites, with Manchester City requiring an unlikely combination of Arsenal slip-ups and near-perfect results.
5. What History Tells Us
Historical precedent also favours the league leaders.
In Premier League history, teams leading the table by seven or more points after 30 matches have gone on to win the title 12 out of 13 times—a success rate of 92.3%.
The only exception came during the 1997–98 season, when Manchester United held a nine-point lead before being caught by Arsenal under Arsène Wenger.
While City’s game in hand complicates the comparison slightly, history still suggests that a lead of this size is rarely surrendered.
The Decisive Fixture
Of course, the two contenders still have to face each other.
The match between Manchester City and Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium could prove decisive.
A City victory would slash the gap and inject real tension into the final weeks. An Arsenal win, however, would likely all but secure the title.
The Real Challenge: Finishing the Job
By nearly every analytical measure—fixture strength, venue-adjusted difficulty, simulations, and historical precedent—Arsenal appear to have the easier run-in and the strongest chance of lifting the trophy.
But football titles are rarely decided purely by numbers.
In recent seasons, Arsenal have come close to the summit only to fall short in the decisive moments. The final step often proves the hardest, particularly when pressure and expectation intensify.
Statistically, the title race is Arsenal’s to lose.
Psychologically, however, the biggest obstacle may simply be proving they can finish what they started.
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