Premier League Boxing Day goal-fests: The 5 highest-scoring matches in history

Last Updated on 27 December 2025

With tired legs, heavy pitches and barely any recovery time, December 26 has a long history of turning organised defending into a festive suggestion rather than a requirement.

While some teams grind through the chaos, others completely lose control, and when that happens, goals start flying in from everywhere.

These aren’t just high-scoring games. They’re goal-fests that spiral, matches where scorelines stop making sense and momentum swings every five minutes. Here are the five highest-scoring Boxing Day matches in Premier League history.

5 – Manchester United 4-3 Newcastle United (2012)

Before we get into the official top five, this one deserves its flowers.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s final Boxing Day at Old Trafford felt like a greatest-hits compilation. Newcastle led three separate times. Papiss Cisse scored. Jonny Evans scored… at the wrong end. The pitch was slick, the crowd tense, and United looked unusually vulnerable.

Then, right on cue, came the moment everyone expected and nobody could stop. Ninety minutes on the clock and Javier Hernandez sliding in at the back post. Absolute bedlam. It was Boxing Day distilled into one goal, frantic, dramatic, and inevitable.

4 – Bolton Wanderers 4-3 Newcastle United (2002)

If neutral fans were asked which team guaranteed Boxing Day entertainment in the early 2000s, Newcastle United would’ve topped the list, and this chaotic trip to Bolton was Exhibit A.

The match exploded into life immediately. Three goals inside the opening nine minutes set the tone, with Jay-Jay Okocha and Ricardo Gardner firing Bolton ahead before Alan Shearer responded almost instantly.

Michael Ricketts then took control, scoring twice to give Sam Allardyce’s Bolton a commanding 4-1 lead and underlining why they were such a nightmare opponent for the league’s elite.

Newcastle, predictably, refused to go quietly. Shearer struck again, pressure mounted, and the final stages became frantic. But Bolton held firm seeing out a 4-3 lead on a classic.

3 – Chelsea 4-4 Aston Villa (2007)

Up there as possibly one of the greatest fixtures of all-time in Premier League history rather than just a Boxing Day classic.

Villa stunned Stamford Bridge by going 2-0 up. Then came the red cards. Zat Knight. Ricardo Carvalho. Ashley Cole. One after another, discipline evaporated.

Goals followed. Shevchenko. Ballack. Alex. Laursen. Chelsea thought they’d won it in the 88th minute. They hadn’t.

In stoppage time, Ashley Cole handled on the line. Red card. Penalty. Gareth Barry kept his nerve. Final score: 4-4. Boxing Day chaos at its purest.

2 – Manchester City 6-3 Leicester City (2021)

For 25 minutes, this looked like a mismatch. City were four goals up, cruising, dismantling Leicester with surgical ease. Then something snapped.

Maddison scored. Lookman followed. Iheanacho made it 4–3 and suddenly the Etihad went quiet. A comeback that felt impossible was suddenly very real.

City eventually steadied themselves. Laporte and Sterling restored order, but this nine-goal Boxing Day feast proved even Pep Guardiola’s teams aren’t immune to festive madness.

1 – Tottenham Hotspur 6-4 Reading (2007)

Dimitar Berbatov was unplayable, scoring four times with trademark elegance. And yet, somehow, Reading refused to go away. They led. Spurs responded. Reading led again. With 15 minutes left, the visitors were somehow 4-3 up.

Then fatigue hit. Spurs’ attacking depth took over. Malbranque struck. Defoe struck. White Hart Lane exploded.

Ten goals. Constant swings. Zero control. Instant Boxing Day classic.