Data show Premier League tightened in 2025-26 season
Arsenal's Community Shield victory over Manchester City was only their fourth win from 19 meetings this decade, and a BBC Sport analysis published on 17 August 2026 found that the 2025-26 Premier League season produced a noticeably tighter table than in recent years. Statistical measures across the division point to narrower margins between several tiers of the league.
The champions-to-bottom spread last season was 65 points between Arsenal and Wolves, close to the 38-game-season average of 63 points, while the longstanding gulf between the top four and the bottom three narrowed sharply. That gap fell from 44 points in 2024-25 to 26 points in 2025-26, the smallest top-four-to-bottom-three difference since 2002-03, and the analysis notes this change against the backdrop of the league having been reduced to 20 teams in 1995-96.
European qualification became more accessible: Aston Villa secured Champions League football by finishing two places higher despite collecting one point fewer than when they finished seventh the previous season. Liverpool claimed the fifth Champions League spot on 60 points, a total the report says is the lowest by a side finishing fifth in 19 years and would have been sufficient only for ninth place in 2024-25. Bournemouth and Sunderland both qualified for European competition—Bournemouth for the first time in their history and Sunderland for the first time in over half a century.
Teams in the bottom half accumulated more points than in recent seasons, altering how final positions should be judged. Everton's 13th-place finish came with the most points for that position since they themselves achieved it at the turn of the millennium, the four places below Everton posted their highest points totals in 23 years, and West Ham were relegated despite recording the highest points total for an 18th-placed side since 2010-11. Overall, 13 of the 20 teams finished between 40 and 60 points, the most sides in that range since the 2003-04 campaign, which also had 13.
The data do not settle whether the shift reflects improvement among traditionally smaller clubs or a fall-off at the top, but they record significant movement among recent upper-table sides. Four teams that finished in the top seven in 2024-25—champions Liverpool, Chelsea, Newcastle and Nottingham Forest—accumulated 79 fewer points between them in 2025-26, and the report highlights Nottingham Forest's decline in light of their seventh-place finish in 2024-25 and their run to the Europa League semi-finals the following season. By contrast, promoted Sunderland and Leeds amassed 64 more points than the teams they replaced.
The analysis also identifies a growing polarity at the bottom of the table. The average points total for the 19th-placed side in a 38-game season is 31, yet whereas only two 19th-placed teams failed to reach 30 points in the first 21 seasons after the league was reduced to 20 teams, seven of the last 10 have fallen short of 30. In the past two seasons promoted Ipswich and Burnley both finished 19th on 22 points, the fewest ever taken by a second-bottom side. The report states relegation contests increasingly revolve around securing the final spot in the bottom three, with the other two places often resolved well before the final day and frequently involving promoted clubs.
Promoted Coventry City, Ipswich Town and Hull City will all be hoping they can emulate the survival shown by recent promoted sides such as Sunderland and Leeds and match the increased competitiveness identified in the Premier League this season.
