- Man City six points behind Arsenal
- Title rivals play each other this Sunday
- Arsenal hold advantage later on
Manchester City are building momentum in the Premier League, but Arsenal still have a reason to feel confident.
It has been quite the weekend for Manchester City, after a 3-0 thrashing of Chelsea saw them close the gap on the Premier League leaders.
One day earlier, Arsenal lost to Bournemouth in what was a third consecutive defeat in all competitions for the Gunners.
This has placed Man City only six points off the top spot, ahead of their clash against Arsenal at the weekend. Additionally, Pep Guardiola’s team have a game in hand.
Man City have harder fixtures than Arsenal
While Man City have the chance to move even closer to Arsenal on Sunday, it is the team visiting the Etihad Stadium who have a more favourable set of fixtures remaining.
This is according to Fantasy Premier League’s Fixture Difficulty Rating metric, which ranks each match from easy to hard based on the opponent.
| Manchester City | Arsenal |
| Arsenal (H) – 4 | Manchester City (A) – 5 |
| Burnley (A) – 2 | Newcastle United (H) – 3 |
| Everton (A) – 3 | Fulham (H) – 3 |
| Brentford (H) – 3 | West Ham (A) – 2 |
| Bournemouth (A) – 3 | Burnley (H) – 1 |
| Aston Villa (H) – 3 | Crystal Palace (A) – 3 |
| Average Fixture Difficult Rating: 3 | Average Fixture Difficulty Rating: 2.83 |
Arsenal still have matches to fulfil against West Ham and Burnley, which are viewed as fairly straightforward. Man City will also face Burnley, but all their other games are seen as at least a moderate level of difficulty.
It is worth noting that City will host Crystal Palace, but this is a rescheduled fixture and has not been added yet.
Man City and Arsenal’s form matters
The Premier League’s FDR measurement is based on statistics, which makes it fairly accurate. However, the metric is not perfect.
Right now, it is clear that no fixture is easy for Mikel Arteta’s side considering they recently lost to Southampton and Bournemouth.
Whereas Man City recently took apart Liverpool and Chelsea like they were level one opponents, when this of course was not the case.
Ultimately, City are the ones who will be feeling confident ahead of this weekend and should they win, that feeling will only grow stronger.
Opta Supercomputer increases Man City’s Premier League chances
The Premier League’s fixture difficulty system is not the only stats-based engine to make predictions about Man City’s upcoming matches.
There is also the Opta Supercomputer, which has increased the Citizen’s likelihood of winning the league by 6.38 to 13.02 per cent, after the weekend’s results.
Arsenal were given almost 94 per cent chance of winning the Premier League, but this has now dropped to just under 87 per cent.
This still means Arsenal are in the driving seat to secure this desirable piece of silverware, but clearly Man City are catching up.
Plus, if the Sky Blues can record another win when Arsenal visit Manchester, there will be even further changes to the Supercomputer’s predicted table in their favour.
