Premier League Playoff? The extraordinary scenario that could force a 39th Premier League game

The 2025–26 Premier League season should be over on Sunday. Thirty-eight rounds played, title already wrapped up, and yet there exists, buried deep in the permutations, a possibility so rare it has never actually happened in the competition’s history.

A 39th match. An extra game, beyond the final day, to settle one of the most coveted prizes in European football. It sounds like something dreamed up in a football fan’s fantasy.

And yet the Premier League rulebook allows for it, and the maths, just about make it possible.

How a Liverpool vs Bournemouth playoff could actually happen

Liverpool currently sit 5th, 3 points ahead of 6th-placed Bournemouth, with their destiny in their own hands. On paper, that should be that because of a superior goal difference. Only way it doesn’t happen is if a 7-goal swing occurs with Liverpool losing and Bournemouth winning.

Here is where it gets genuinely extraordinary. A 1-0 defeat for Liverpool and a 5-0 win for Bournemouth on Sunday could lead to an extraordinary one-leg playoff for fifth place. That’s because the clubs would have the same points, goal difference, goals scored, head-to-head record and away goals scored in head-to-head matches across the season.

Those are all the tiebreakers the Premier League has at its disposal. If teams could not be separated by those criteria and they are fighting for European spots, a one-off play-off game at a neutral ground will be scheduled to decide who finishes higher, via ESPN.

It is the nuclear option in the rulebook, and right now, an absurdly specific set of scorelines on Sunday is the only thing standing between us and its first-ever use for a European place.

What’s at stake: Champions League spots, Villa’s Europa win and the sixth-place wildcard

The prize for finishing fifth is emphatic: a Champions League place. Four Champions League places have already been determined, Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United will qualify via their league placings. While Aston Villa are also guaranteed their spot and will make it either as Europa League champions or through a top-five finish.

Fifth place in the Premier League will be given a European Performance Spot in the Champions League as Villa have already qualified for the competition by winning the Europa League. Consequently, should Villa finish fifth, the EPS spot will be passed down to sixth.

As a result, for Bournemouth, a Liverpool win might not be the end of their CL hopes. Should Villa lose to City and Liverpool win against Brentford, Villa will finish fifth, meaning sixth gets CL. So Sunday’s final day isn’t just dramatic, it’s genuinely open.

Bournemouth could reach the Champions League via sixth. Liverpool could clinch it in fifth. Or, in the most improbable twist of all, neither side settles it on the day. And, instead, English football gets something it has never seen: a Premier League playoff match.