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Premier League champions Arsenal are the Opta supercomputer’s overwhelming favourites for the visit of promoted Coventry City on Friday. Look ahead with our Arsenal vs Coventry prediction and preview. Arsenal vs Coventry: The Key Insights - The Opta supercomputer rates Arsenal as huge favourites with a win probability of 80.4% to Coventry’s 7.1%. - Arsenal have won all three of their MD1 fixtures as reigning Premier League champions. - Coventry have won just one of their previous 14 top-flight meetings against the Gunners. Arsenal begin the defence of their Premier League title as heavy favourites against new boys Coventry City at Emirates Stadium on Friday. The Gunners ended a 22-year wait to be champions of England last term, racking up 85 points in the process and holding off Manchester City, who ended up seven points adrift. Now, it is time to start it all over again, and Arsenal are heavily fancied to retain their crown, especially with so many of their expected rivals having gone through a big summer of change. Mikel Arteta’s men won their final five league games en route to winning the title last term, and the omens are good as they seek a winning start here. Arsenal won each of their previous three MD1 Premier League games as reigning champions, the most recent of which was against Everton in the 2004-05 season. Moreover, two of those came against promoted sides (Nottingham Forest in 1998-99, and Birmingham City in 2002-03). Moreover, Arsenal have won their opening Premier League match in four straight campaigns since losing 2-0 to Brentford in the 2021-22 season. However, they’ve only seen such a run stretch to five successive years once before in their entire history, doing so between 2001-02 and 2005-06. It should also be noted that Arsenal boast a near-perfect record against promoted teams over the past few years. Since the start of 2023-24, Arsenal have won 17 of their 18 Premier League matches promoted opposition, the exception coming in a 2-2 draw with Sunderland last season. At home, Arteta’s side are unbeaten in 45 league meetings with promoted teams, the longest such run by any team in Premier League history (W40, D5). If Arsenal do earn an expected victory on Friday, Arteta would become just the fifth manager to reach 150 Premier League victories in fewer than 250 games (248) after Pep Guardiola (204), José Mourinho (231), Jürgen Klopp (237) and Alex Ferguson (247). The Spaniard will come up against Frank Lampard in the Coventry dugout. He lost his first managerial meeting with the former England midfielder in what was his first home game as Arsenal boss back in December 2019 (a 2-1 defeat to Chelsea). Since then, Arteta is unbeaten in all five games against Lampard in all competitions, winning the last four (D1). Coventry went up as champions from the Championship last season to end a 25-year exile from the Premier League. The Sky Blues fell as low as League Two in that time but have fought their way back to the Promised Land. Their last top-flight campaign in 2001-02 saw them start with a 3-1 defeat to Middlesbrough. They have not begun a league season with a win since beating Nottingham Forest 2-1 in the Championship in 2021-22 (D2, L2 in four seasons since). This will be Coventry’s first Premier League match in 25 years and 94 days, marking the longest gap between games by a side in the competition’s history. As such, Friday’s fixture represents Coventry’s first league match at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, though they have lost there in the League Cup (6-1 in 2012) and FA Cup (4-0 in 2014). Only two teams (excluding Arsenal) have won their first league match at the ground – West Ham in April 2007 and Hull City in September 2008. Arteta has a couple of defensive issues to contend with for this fixture, with William Saliba (back) a long-term absentee, and Jurriën Timber (groin) still a few weeks away from being able to feature. For Coventry, Jack Rudoni (shoulder) is close to fitness, but the Arsenal game might come too soon, while Haji Wright (quad) is definitely out. Ephron Mason-Clark (hamstring) could feature, though. Arsenal vs Coventry City Head-to-Head You have to go back 25 years for the last time these sides faced one another in the Premier League. On that occasion, it was Arsenal who ran out 1-0 winners over Coventry at Highfield Road back in February 2001. The Sky Blues did the double over Arsenal in the 1993-94 season, but since then they have won just one of their 14 top-flight meetings (D5, L8), that coming courtesy of 3-2 win on Boxing Day in 1999. Arsenal and Coventry have met each other once before on the opening matchday of a season, back in that aforementioned 1993-94 campaign. Mick Quinn scored a hat-trick as Coventry ran out 3-0 victors over the Gunners at Highbury. Arsenal vs Coventry City Prediction Arsenal are heavily backed by the Opta supercomputer to start their title defence with a victory over the top-flight new boys. Indeed, their chances of victory on home soil are rated as high as 80.4% for this fixture. Conversely, Coventry won in just 7.1% of the supercomputer’s 10,000 pre-match simulations, so it would be considered a huge shock if the Sky Blues walked away with all three points. Even the draw looks a long shot at just 12.5%. Additionally, their season expectations could scarcely be more different. The Gunners are considered the favourites by Opta’s supercomputer to retain the title at 38%, with Manchester City (20.5%) their closest challengers. Coventry, meanwhile, have a 27.9% chance of dropping straight back down to the Championship. Only fellow promoted sides Hull City (38.7%) and Ipswich Town (31.2%) were relegated more often. Arsenal vs Coventry Predicted Lineups Arsenal: David Raya, Ben White, Cristhian Mosquera, Gabriel Magalhães, Riccardo Calafiori, Bruno Guimaraes, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Martin Ødegaard, Noni Madueke, Kai Havertz, Christos Tzolis. Head coach: Mikel Arteta Coventry City: Carl Rushworth, Jay DaSilva, Aurèle Amenda, Bobby Thomas, Milan van Ewijk, Caleb Yirenkyi, Matt Grimes, Brandon Thomas-Asante, Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, Loum Tchaouna, Ellis Simms. Head coach: Frank Lampard Opta Power Rankings The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world, and 100 is the best team in the world. Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides. Enjoy this? Add Opta Analyst as a preferred source by clicking here. Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.