With just 10 fixtures left for Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal this season, the title race is set to go down to the wire. This weekend, just after the Reds take on Brighton, the other two contenders face off at the Etihad Stadium.

Supporters will be scouring the fixture list of their team and the other two as the 2023/24 title race enters the home straight. With 10 games to go, the table is unusually tight.

The Gunners moved to the top of the Premier League with a 2-1 victory over Brentford the last time they played in the top flight almost a month ago. The Reds joined them on 64 points by drawing 1-1 with the Citizens, who themselves are one point back. Thanks in part to a recent stretch of relatively kind fixtures in which it rattled in plenty of goals, Arsenal has the best goal difference (+46), with a lead of seven over Liverpool and a further four over City.

But that is in the past. The team that amasses the most points over the remaining matches will surely win the league. With Arsenal heading to the Etihad for their next league game, does that hand the advantage to Liverpool? It might if that match ends in a draw, but regardless of that, there’s reason to think Jürgen Klopp’s side has the kindest run-in.

There is no flawless method to assess fixture difficulty. No system can take account of the gap between matches, with all three teams doing well in Europe, nor how many injuries a squad is carrying.

For instance, any game will be trickier if your side has traveled across Europe three days earlier and has an absentee list in double figures. Just ask Liverpool, who faced this exact scenario against Manchester City. Local rivalries play a part too; a trip to Goodison Park is inevitably more demanding for the Reds than it is for other teams.

The method employed by SoccerSTATS is to look at the points-per-game averages of the teams a club still has to face, and factor in whether the match is at home or away as appropriate. For instance, City has averaged 2.43 points per home game this season, so that figure will go towards Arsenal’s run-in score, while its 2.07 record on the road will be added to the Cityzens’ tally. By this measure, it’s the Reds who face the kindest remaining 10 games.

The points-per-game average of Liverpool’s opponents from those matches is 1.38, whereas it is 1.53 for City and 1.64 for the Gunners. While the picture obviously changes with every game played, Arsenal currently has the hardest games left of any side in the division, with Pep Guardiola’s team ranked sixth and the Reds in 11th. This illustrates how Klopp’s final team, Liverpool 2.0, has put itself in this position with a more difficult opening 28 games than those faced by their rivals.

The SoccerSTATS run-in analysis page also highlights the points-per-game average of each club’s next four games. For the Reds it is a very kind 1.06, far below the 1.42 average City will come up against, never mind the 1.71 waiting in Arsenal’s immediate future.

With three of the next four at ‘fortress’ Anfield, Liverpool can be confident of putting plenty of points on the board soon, and possibly creating a gap between itself and the other contenders. Whatever twists and turns occur in the title race, the path to glory appears to be opening up for the Reds.