Arsenal 2-1 Chelsea: the fixture list between here and 28 November

Arsenal beat Chelsea 2-1 on 6 September. The more useful question is what the weeks after it ask of them, and of Manchester City.

Europe first, for both

Neither side gets a quiet week. Manchester City open the Champions League away to FC Porto on 9 September; Arsenal are away to Napoli the following night, on 10 September. Both kick off at 3:00 Malaysian time, which is the hour every European season is watched from here.

Then the fixtures that separate them

Manchester City have the harder September. They visit Manchester United on 13 September at 23:30, a derby four days after a night in Portugal, and there is no version of that week that counts as preparation.

Arsenal get no equivalent test for two months. Their next meeting with a rival near the top is away to Liverpool on 2 November, a 00:30 kick-off here, and then Manchester City at home on 28 November at 23:00.

Manchester City reach Liverpool first, away on 11 October at 23:30. On the calendar alone, the harder away nights arrive earlier for Manchester City than they do for Arsenal.

What that is worth, and what it is not

Fixture-difficulty arguments are usually made backwards, from a table that already exists, and they age badly. The narrower version holds: Arsenal have a stretch in which the calendar asks less of them than it asks of Manchester City, and they enter it having just won.

That is worth something in September. It is worth much less by 28 November, when the two schedules meet at the Arsenal ground and the season starts being decided by the football rather than by the ordering of the fixtures.

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