Festive fixtures - which Premier League teams have a rough ride over Christmas?

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for football fans with a feast of matches for supporters and punters to get stuck into this week.

For players and managers, however, the unique demands of the festive fixture list provide challenges over how best to rotate the squad with shorter recovery periods, less time to prepare for opponents and greater scope for injuries.

Things can change quickly for teams as the fixtures come thick and fast, and the number of games being moved for TV broadcasts mean that some teams end up with a schedule that is condensed further.

The graphic highlights the winners and losers from this year’s festive fixtures.

It measures each team's total rest in hours, compares the rest in hours between each individual match and ranks who has the most difficult set of games by averaging out Sporting Index's season totals for the three opponents each team will face.

The most rested team over the Christmas and new year period will be Sheffield United who have an extra two days to play their three fixtures compared to Wolves, who have the least time off.

The evening kick-off for Wolves’s game with Manchester City on Friday means both clubs will play their three fixtures in less than five full days.

They are the only two teams who concede an extra day of rest to their opponents in both their second and third games in the period.

Wolves have already played 32 games this season thanks to their participation in Europa League qualifying and their schedule looks particularly hard.

Not only do they have to play the division’s two strongest sides in City and Liverpool, but the 44.75 hours gap between the fixtures is the shortest anyone will face and Jurgen Klopp’s league leaders will have had almost 24 hours extra to prepare.

That game involves travel to and from Merseyside, and they are also away in their third game against a Watford team who will have had their feet up for more than a day longer.

At the other end of the spectrum, not only do Sheffield United have the most rest time, they are one of only four teams who do not have to play a game with only one full recovery day in between.

They face some tough fixtures, but you have to play away to City and Liverpool at some point so ticking them off when they get an extra day's rest, as they do against City, and at the end of a hectic period that has seen Liverpool face fixture congestion and a flight back from Qatar, is probably as good a time as any.

Arsenal and Chelsea are the other two teams who do not have to play games with only one full rest day in between.

It means their fixtures are more evenly spaced out, but they will concede an extra day off to their opponents in their final match of the period, and that will pose questions of new Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta, in particular, as to how he juggles his squad with games against the Blues and a more rested Manchester United 78 hours apart.

West Ham go into festive period after a 12-day layoff due to their scheduled game on December 21 being postponed for Liverpool’s Club World Cup participation.

We’ve covered why Wolves and the Blades have the toughest run based on fixture difficulty (the teams they are due to play are projected to get an average of 71 points over the course of the season), but further examination of the fixture strength ranking shows just how important this run of games is for some relegation candidates.

Games against bottom-two sides, Norwich and Watford, as well as a trip to Burnley, offers Aston Villa the chance to climb back out of the drop zone. Those three opponents are projected to get an average of just 34.3 points over the course of the season.

Brighton and Newcastle face a demanding Christmas.

Newcastle's average opponents over the period are projected to get 60.7 points, and Brighton 57.3, as both sides face two games against sides battling for Champions League spots.

Southampton (58.7) also face two top-four hopefuls and will need to target their home game against Crystal Palace on December 28 if they want to avoid being dragged back into the bottom three once the festive period is over.

Tottenham (37.3) have a chance to consolidate their recent push into the Champions League spots with three games against relegation candidates.

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