Premier League matchweek 1: all ten opening fixtures

The 2026/27 Premier League starts on Friday 21 August and the opening round stretches to Monday the 24th. Ten matches across four days, with half the dugouts occupied by somebody new and one club back in the top flight after twenty-five years.

The ten fixtures

Here is the full opening matchweek. Kick-off times and broadcast picks come from June's fixture release and can move, as they do every season:

• Friday 21, 20:00 — Arsenal v Coventry City.
• Saturday 22, 12:30 — Hull City v Manchester United.
• Saturday 22, 15:00 — Everton v Crystal Palace, Ipswich Town v Sunderland and Nottingham Forest v Leeds United.
• Saturday 22, 17:30 — Brentford v Tottenham Hotspur.
• Sunday 23, 14:00 — Brighton v Aston Villa and Manchester City v Bournemouth.
• Sunday 23, 16:30 — Newcastle United v Liverpool.
• Monday 24, 20:00 — Fulham v Chelsea.

Friday: the champions and the club that spent a quarter of a century away

Arsenal open as champions, which they have not done for twenty-two years: they won their fourteenth English title with a game to spare. Facing them are Coventry City, who came up as Championship champions with three matches left and an eleven-point cushion, and who last played in the top flight in 2000/01. Their manager is Frank Lampard.

Sunday: four managers making their debuts

At 14:00 Manchester City host Bournemouth with Enzo Maresca taking his first competitive match as Pep Guardiola's successor, Guardiola having left after ten years. Maresca had already been at the club as Guardiola's assistant in 2022/23, so he returns somewhere he knows. In the other dugout, Marco Rose also debuts for Bournemouth.

Then at 16:30 comes the weekend's biggest fixture: Newcastle United against Liverpool, with both clubs starting a new manager. Matthias Jaissle, a 38-year-old German, was appointed on 5 August in place of Eddie Howe, who stepped down after almost five years; Newcastle paid Al-Ahli compensation reported at more than nine million pounds. Opposite him, Andoni Iraola takes his first league match in charge of Liverpool after Arne Slot's dismissal.

Monday: two old Real Madrid team-mates

The closing fixture has the best subplot. Fulham v Chelsea pits Xabi Alonso, now managing Chelsea after thirty-four games at Real Madrid, against Álvaro Arbeloa, the man who replaced him there and who now manages Fulham. They were team-mates at Madrid and at Liverpool. They meet again on a Monday night, in opposing dugouts.

The three promoted clubs

Coventry came up as champions, Ipswich as runners-up — back at the first attempt after going down — and Hull City through the narrowest route of all: they won the play-off final 1-0 against Middlesbrough at Wembley on 23 May, Oli McBurnie scoring in the fifth minute of second-half stoppage time.

All three begin very differently. Ipswich host Sunderland, who proved last season that a promoted club can finish seventh and reach Europe. Hull open at home to Manchester United in Saturday's lunchtime slot. And Coventry, as noted, visit the champions.

Ten new dugouts

The rest of the round has its own interest. Brentford host Tottenham in Roberto De Zerbi's first match, inheriting a side that finished seventeenth last season and survived only on the final day. Nottingham Forest, who got through four managers in a single campaign, start Oliver Glasner against Daniel Farke's Leeds. And David Moyes's Everton open at home to Crystal Palace.

One number is worth knowing about Hull before judging them: they went up after finishing sixth, but expected-goals models ranked them twenty-third in the division, with a real goal difference of +4 against an expected −19.5. In plain terms, they outperformed their underlying numbers by something like twenty points. Opening against Manchester United will say a good deal about whether that was luck or something more.

There is a scheduling detail behind all of this too. The season starts a week later than usual by design: eighty-nine clear days after the end of 2025/26 and thirty-three after the World Cup final, and it is built to finish before the Champions League final on 5 June 2027. The calendar also guarantees no club plays two rounds within sixty hours over Christmas and New Year.

The statistic that sums up this matchweek: ten of the twenty clubs start under a manager who was not there last season. Guardiola, Slot and Howe all left in the same summer.

And a useful warning for anyone hunting the fixture list for needle: there is no manager facing a former club in this opening round. It came close — Iraola left Bournemouth, who play City; Maresca left Chelsea, who play Fulham — but no such tie materialised.

"Ten matches, four days, and half the league under a new manager. Few opening weekends have carried this many first times."

• Fill in all ten opening fixtures and start your own season.
• Simulate all 38 matchdays and build your final table.
• Change any result and watch the European places and relegation rearrange.
• Use the supercomputer to see each club's title probability.

"Open the Premier League simulator and write matchweek one."