Testing whether theories about Everton fixture quirks hold water after the 2025/26 Premier League season schedule is revealed
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We’re told that the Premier League fixture computer generates its sequences. But some Everton fans still think they can spot some reoccurring patterns.
So let’s put some theories to the test, starting with: Everton are always at home for the first Merseyside Derby of the season.
Not this year! For over 130 years, these fixtures took place ‘across Stanley Park’, but with Everton moving from Goodison Park to Hill Dickinson Stadium, that has also brought a change in the supposed ‘natural’ order with Anfield going first in what is just matchweek 5 of the fledgling campaign on September 20.
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Last season, what was Goodison’s last Merseyside Derby was originally due to take place on December 7, but with Storm Darragh battering the region with 70mph winds, the game was rearranged for February 12, by which time David Moyes had replaced Sean Dyche as Blues boss. James Tarkowski’s dramatic last-gasp equaliser with what proved to be the final kick from an Everton player earned the hosts a 2-2 draw and ensured Liverpool were denied the honour of having won more Goodison derbies than their neighbours and it was the 15th occasion in 21 seasons that the Blues had been at home first.
In 2023/24, when Everton secured their first home win over Liverpool in 13-and-a-half years, it was the other way around with Anfield going first but for the previous three seasons before that the Blues were always at home first. For three years in a row before that, Anfield went first but the thought process probably goes back to the period between 2003/04 to 2013/14 it went Goodison then Anfield for 11 straight seasons.
Next up.... If you start the season at home, you should really finish it away or vice versa? So you would think but only 12 out of Everton’s last 21 Premier League campaigns have followed such a pattern of equality and for 2025/26, the Blues are on the road both for their first fixture at Leeds United on August 18 and their last at Tottenham Hotspur on May 24.
That trip to north London next spring ensures Everton have only finished a season at home in eight of the last 21 campaigns, but whereas Goodison opened the season in 15 of its last 20, Hill Dickinson Stadium is going to have to wait for its first such accolade.
The 2022/23 season was one of six occasions that the Blues have started and finished the campaign at Goodison over this period along with 2015/16, 2011/12, 2009/10, 2007/08 and 2005/06. In contrast, like in 2025/26, they’ve also had a hat-trick of previous seasons that both began and ended on the road – 2020/21, 2018/19 and 2013/14, although it must be noted that the first of those was the ‘lockdown’ season played mostly behind closed doors because of coronavirus restrictions, although they did finish in front of a limited number of spectators at champions Manchester City.
Everton’s trip to newly-promoted Burnley on December 27 ensures 12 out of their last 21 festive fixtures, usually on Boxing Day but this season it’s a day later, have been away. Two were postponed, the trip to Burnley in 2021 due to a coronavirus outbreak and the proposed home match against Birmingham City in 2010 due to frozen pipes bursting at Goodison Park, so those cancellations also even each other out.
Over the previous 21 seasons, the Blues have twice had the ‘hat-trick’ of home fixtures at the start, Boxing Day and finish of a campaign. These came last season (Chelsea, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Bournemouth) and in 2007/08 (Wigan Athletic, Bolton Wanderers and Newcastle United).
Everton have also had a couple of away trebles, in the aforementioned lockdown season of 2020/21 (Tottenham Hotspur, Sheffield United and Manchester City) and 2018/19 (Wolverhampton Wanderers, Burnley and Tottenham Hotspur).
Back on Boxing Day 2018, the Blues thrashed a Burnley side managed by a certain Sean Dyche 5-1 at Turf Moor on a day that Colombian centre-back Yerry Mina opened the scoring after just two minutes with his first goal for the club.
Meanwhile, It looks like the fixture schedulers are finally getting wise to the fact that the journey between Merseyside and Tyneside is quite a trek. Did Premier League bosses in London think “well it’s all the north?” because it’s at least a six-hour round trip.
At the moment, Everton are due to host Newcastle on Saturday, November 29 with the return game pencilled in for Saturday, February 28. If it stays like that then it will be the second consecutive season that these two matches were both played at the weekend after they drew 0-0 at Goodison Park on Saturday, October 4, 2024 – thanks to Jordan Pickford saving Anthony Gordon’s penalty – and then the Blues won 1-0 at St James’ Park with a Carlos Alcaraz header on the final day on Sunday May 25, 2025.
Before that, other than the 2020/21 season when the fixture was played behind closed doors due to coronavirus restrictions, Newcastle were handed seven consecutive visits to Everton on weeknights (Wednesday, Monday, Wednesday, Tuesday, and then three Thursdays in a row). For the previous three seasons, both fixtures between the clubs were on midweek dates with the Blues’ 1-1 draw at St James’ Park on Tuesday April 2 when Dominic Calvert-Lewin netted their late equaliser from the penalty spot after going 23 matches without scoring.
Since Nottingham Forest ended a 23-year Premier League exile by winning promotion in 2022, Everton have already played them twice in December and in 2025/26, they’re facing them twice more in the same month.
When they first met, at the City Ground on December 2, 2023, the Blues had just dropped to the bottom of the table after their initial 10-point deduction the previous month, but they started their recovery with a spectacular strike from Dwight McNeil on 67 minutes.
However, last season a sorry 2-0 defeat for a toothless Everton side on December 29 proved to be Dyche’s final home game in charge before he was sacked.
Forest – who were the Blues’ first league opponents at Goodison Park back in 1892, will make their inaugural visit to Hill Dickinson Stadium on December 6 before hosting Moyes’ men in the East Midlands just 24 days later on December 30 in their final fixture of the calendar year.