Premier League 2026-27 FAQ

The 2026-27 Premier League season starts on Friday 21 August 2026. The full 38-matchweek fixture list is expected to run through to May 2027.

Burnley, West Ham United, and Wolverhampton Wanderers were relegated at the end of the 2025-26 Premier League season. Their places in the top flight for 2026-27 were taken by Coventry City, Hull City, and Sunderland.

Coventry City, Hull City, and Sunderland were promoted to the Premier League for the 2026-27 season, joining the 17 clubs retained from 2025-26.

The Premier League has 20 teams. Each club plays 38 matches over the course of the season, facing every other side twice: once at home and once away.

There is no fixed points total required to win the Premier League title. In recent seasons champions have typically finished with between 80 and 97 points. The record is 100 points, set by Manchester City in 2017-18.

There is no guaranteed safety total, but finishing with 40 or more points has historically been enough to avoid relegation in most seasons. Some years survival has been secured with fewer, depending on how tightly contested the bottom of the table is.

Nine Premier League clubs qualified for European competition in 2026-27. Arsenal (Premier League champions), Manchester City, Manchester United, Aston Villa (Europa League winners, earning an automatic Champions League berth), and Liverpool (UEFA European Performance Spot) are in the UEFA Champions League. Bournemouth (6th in the Premier League), Sunderland (FA Cup allocation), and Crystal Palace (Conference League winners, upgraded to Europa League) are in the UEFA Europa League. Brighton qualified for the UEFA Conference League via their Premier League finish.

The January transfer window opens on 1 January 2027 and closes at 11pm GMT on 31 January 2027.

A player is in an offside position if any part of their body that can legally score a goal is closer to the opponent's goal line than both the ball and the second to last defender when the ball is played to them. Being in an offside position is not itself an offence; the player must be actively involved in play for the referee to call offside.

When two Premier League clubs finish level on points, the first tiebreaker is goal difference (goals scored minus goals conceded). If that is also equal, the next steps are: goals scored, then head-to-head points, head-to-head goal difference, and head-to-head goals scored.

xG stands for expected goals. It is a statistical measure that estimates the quality of a goal scoring chance based on factors such as shot location, angle, and the type of assist. An xG of 1.0 represents a chance that a typical player would score once on average. Teams that consistently outscore their xG are often said to be overperforming, and vice versa.

Premier League clubs are permitted to make five substitutions per match, with the option to use a sixth in extra time for cup competitions. Teams can name up to nine substitutes on the bench.

Premier League clubs can register a maximum of 25 players aged 21 or over in their squad for each registration period. Players under 21 on 1 January of the current season do not count towards this limit and can be registered freely.

The FA Community Shield is a curtain raiser match traditionally played between the Premier League champions and the FA Cup winners. In 2026 it was held at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, with Arsenal defeating Manchester City 3-0 on 16 August 2026.

PL Matchday is a fan made Premier League statistics and analytics site. Select any club from the homepage to explore their league table position, fixture calendar, squad minutes breakdown, form trajectory, performance splits, and individual player stats for the 2026-27 season.

PL Matchday updates automatically after every Premier League match using data from the API-Football service. During match days the site rebuilds within minutes of full time. A baseline rebuild also runs twice daily to catch any corrections or delayed updates.