Where Every Premier League Team Can Finish 2025-26: Each Side’s Best and Worst Possible Positions | OneFootball

With the Premier League more bunched than ever before this late into a season, we reveal the range of final positions in 2025-26 for each team.

Only two rounds of matches remain, but there’s still an awful lot to play for.

Not one of the Premier League’s 20 teams is already sure of their final position, with everything from the title and the European places to the relegation battle still to be decided.

But while the positions that title-chasing Arsenal and Manchester City can finish in are limited to the top two spots, most of the Premier League is so bunched that there is still potential for a vast amount of movement.

Just 12 points separate Bournemouth in sixth and Nottingham Forest in 16th, meaning 14 teams can still move between at least five different positions. Eight of them, meanwhile, still have nine different positions that they could finish in.

So, where can every team finish 2025-26? What are the best- and worst-case scenarios for each of the Premier League’s 20 teams? Here, we map out every possible ending to the season.

We’ve also enlisted the help of the Opta supercomputer to find out just how likely it is that every team finishes in each possible position, based on their recent form, the quality of each team, and the difficulty of their remaining opponents.

Six Teams Can Finish in Just Two Positions

Arsenal and Manchester City are the only two teams fighting for the title and the loser of that battle will finish second. Current leaders Arsenal are huge favourites to win that particular race, given an 86.5% chance by the Opta supercomputer.

Manchester United are currently third and are extremely likely to finish there, too, with the supercomputer giving them a 98.6% chance of doing so.

They have a six-point advantage over Liverpool and Aston Villa, so need only a point from their remaining games to confirm third place. They also can’t be caught by both of those chasing teams because they play each other on Friday night; if that game is drawn, then United will be confirmed in third place.

You have to go to the opposite end of the table to find any other teams that can move between only two places in the season’s final weeks, but there is just as much at stake down there.

West Ham face a huge amount of jeopardy in their last two games, as they can only finish in 17th, which would mean safety, or 18th, which would spell relegation. The supercomputer doesn’t fancy their chances of survival, with the Hammers relegated in 81.3% of the supercomputer’s simulations of the rest of the season.

Beneath them, there is rather less peril for two already-relegated sides, though Wolves may still want to rescue some pride by overtaking Burnley. They have been bottom of the table for the whole season apart from the week after Matchday 2, when they rose temporarily to 19th with a marginally better goal difference than West Ham (who had also lost their first two games).

Wolves have been 20th ever since, but they have clawed their way back into contention to finish 19th. The difference is still three points, though, so they will need to win at least one of their final two games, and may need a point in the other, too, while hoping that Burnley lose both of theirs.

The Race for Champions League Football

Liverpool and Aston Villa have stumbled in recent weeks and have made hard work of qualifying for the Champions League, even with confirmation that fifth place will secure a spot in next season’s competition. With four games to go, they both had an eight-point cushion to sixth, but that has been cut to four points with two matches remaining.

They can both still finish as high as third but as low as seventh, with Bournemouth and Brighton still in with a chance of sneaking into the top five. Brighton, though, can still finish in the bottom half of the table, too.

If Aston Villa finish fifth and win the Europa League, then sixth in the Premier League will qualify for next season’s Champions League. Every team from Liverpool (currently fourth) to Everton (10th) can still finish in sixth place, meaning there could be a lot of interest in the race for sixth place.

The Most-Bunched Middle of the Premier League

This is the most bunched the middle of the Premier League table has ever been at this stage of a season, with positions sixth and 16th separated by just 12 points. It’s the first time in Premier League history that those two positions have been this close together as late into the season as 15 May (when MD36 begins this season). That means this part of the table is where there is the most room for manoeuvre.

Bournemouth and Brighton can still make a late push for a top-five finish, but they can also still finish as low as 10th and 11th, respectively. Brentford, currently eighth, will be hoping to qualify for Europe for the first time in their history, but they can still drop as far as 13th, though that is incredibly unlikely.

Chelsea and Everton, meanwhile, can move more positions (11) than any other teams in the Premier League. They can each finish as high as sixth – giving them an outside chance of Champions League qualification – but it is still mathematically possible that they could fall to 16th.

That isn’t very likely at all, though. In 10,000 simulations of the rest of the 2025-26 campaign by the Opta supercomputer, Chelsea never finished 15th or 16th, while Everton never finished 16th. The same is true of Fulham, who can finish between seventh and 16th, but did not finish that low down in any of the supercomputer’s simulations.

The reason being that for those teams to drop that far, an extremely unlikely set of results would have to occur: each of Leeds, Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest would have to win both of their remaining games.

But Palace and Forest have two of the toughest remaining schedules according to the Opta Power Rankings, while Chelsea, Everton, Fulham and Newcastle – teams they would need to overtake – rank among the teams with the easiest remaining fixtures.

Leeds and Palace didn’t finish ninth in any of the supercomputer’s 10,000 simulations of the rest of the season, and nor did Forest finish 10th. That should give an indication as to just how unlikely those teams are to shoot up the table quite so much.

Here’s a list of all mathematically possible league finishes that are so unlikely that they did not occur even once in the supercomputer’s simulations:

Meanwhile, rivals Sunderland and Newcastle are separated by just two points with two games remaining. Both can still jump up the table and into European contention, or could fall to within two places of the relegation zone.

However, probably the biggest motivation for both will be finishing above the other. Sunderland last recorded a better league finish than their Tyne-Wear rivals in 2016-17, but even then, they finished bottom of the Premier League when Newcastle came top of the Championship, so Sunderland might not look back on that time too fondly. Having enjoyed such a successful return to the top flight so far, they would love to cap it off by confirming a better position than Newcastle.

The Race to Get Away From the Relegation Zone

Quite a few teams who were either in danger of going down only very recently or are still feeling the threat of relegation have the chance to put some breathing space between themselves and the bottom three over the course of the final two games.

Leeds could just about still finish in the top half of the table – they did so in 0.08% of the supercomputer’s simulations of the rest of the campaign – and Forest could challenge for a very respectable mid-table position.

Palace will be focusing on their upcoming Conference League final, particularly given they have such a tough end to the domestic season, but they still have an outside chance of a top-half finish. They came 10th in just one of the supercomputer’s 10,000 simulations of the rest of the season (0.01%). A more realistic goal for those teams is probably aiming for 13th, which still sounds a lot better than 17th would.

One team who would be delighted with 17th are Tottenham. But they also have a chance of finishing as high as 14th, doing so in 0.13% of the supercomputer’s simulations. That would require wins in both of their remaining matches, though, which would mean a second ever Premier League win at Stamford Bridge and a third home win of the season (vs Everton). 17th will be the aim.

There could be plenty of movement right across the Premier League over the final two matchdays, and, with lots still at stake, there is more than just pride to play for.

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