Premier League opening fixtures: Liverpool start season on Friday night against Bournemouth

Liverpool begin the defence of their Premier League title with a home game against Bournemouth on the Friday night of the opening weekend of the 2025-26 season that sees Manchester United host Arsenal.

Arne Slot’s champions, who are likely to contain €136 million signing Florian Wirtz, kick-start the new campaign at Anfield on August 15th. The following day sees Thomas Frank’s Tottenham take on newly-promoted Burnley, with Scott Parker’s side handed a daunting opening set of fixtures on their return to the top-flight. After the visit to Spurs comes trips to both Manchester clubs and Aston Villa, as well as the visit of Liverpool to Turf Moor, all by early October.

Leeds and Sunderland, the other two sides promoted from the Championship, begin their campaigns at home to Everton and West Ham respectively, the former the first Monday night game of the new season. And the day before that sees Arsenal’s trip to Old Trafford, which not surprisingly has been selected for Sky Sports’ 4.30pm Super Sunday slot.

Among the other opening fixtures, Aston Villa host Newcastle in the early kick-off on the Saturday and Manchester City travel to Wolves later the same day. Chelsea, meanwhile, take on Crystal Palace in Sunday’s earlier game.

Everton’s first Premier League match at the Hill Dickinson Stadium comes against Brighton the following weekend, when notable fixtures include Arsenal hosting Leeds, Tottenham travelling to Manchester City and Liverpool visiting Newcastle.

It could well be a testing start for the champions, with a home game against Arsenal on the third weekend of the season, before the first international break. The first Manchester derby comes immediately after the break, on the weekend of September 13th at the Etihad Stadium. City travel to Arsenal the following weekend, which also sees the first Merseyside derby of the season, at Anfield.

The weekend of October 18th includes Liverpool v Manchester United, and the weekend of November 8th brings the first meeting between Manchester City and Liverpool, at the Etihad Stadium. The first derby between Arsenal and Tottenham takes place the other side of the November international break at the Emirates. The northeast derby returns on the weekend of December 13th when Newcastle visit Sunderland.

The first weekend of the new year sees what promises to be a fiery meeting between Leeds and Manchester United at Elland Road while Chelsea travel to the Etihad. There follows a midweek set of fixtures that includes Liverpool’s visit to Arsenal while Fulham and Chelsea meet at Craven Cottage in what could prove to be a fun west London-derby.

Notable fixtures in the second half of the season include the second Manchester derby on the weekend of January 17th and Liverpool hosting Manchester City on the weekend of February 7th. Everton fans will have to wait until the weekend of April 18th for a home Merseyside derby.

The final day of the season falls on Sunday, May 24th, with most concerned presumably hoping there is more on the line than was the case on the final day of the 2024-25 campaign.

It all gets going again at Anfield, then, and for Liverpool comes the task of making a positive start and not becoming the fourth champions in Premier League history to lose their opening game of a season, the other three being Leicester in 2016-17, Chelsea in 2017-18 and Manchester City in 2021-22.