{
 "updated": "2026-07-02",
 "league": "Premier League",
 "last_season": "2025-26",
 "next_season": "2026-27",
 "champion": {
  "team": "Arsenal",
  "result": "26W 7D 5L, 85 points · 7 clear of Manchester City",
  "dates": "Clinched 19 May 2026, with one game to spare",
  "note": "Arsenal went top on 4 October after beating West Ham 2–0 and led the table for 238 days. Manchester City drew level on goals scored as late as 22 April, but four straight Arsenal wins and City draws at Everton (4 May) and Bournemouth (19 May) settled it; the trophy was lifted after a 2–1 win at Crystal Palace on the final day, 24 May."
 },
 "storylines": [
  {
   "title": "Nine into Europe",
   "text": "England earned a European Performance Spot, so five clubs go to the Champions League league phase · Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, Aston Villa and, on the final day, Liverpool. With FA Cup and EFL Cup winners Manchester City already qualified, the cup places cascaded down the table: sixth-placed Bournemouth and seventh-placed Sunderland reached the Europa League and eighth-placed Brighton the Conference League play-off round. Crystal Palace (15th) added a Europa League place as Conference League winners, beating Rayo Vallecano 2–1 in the 27 May final."
  },
  {
   "title": "Villa's silver lining",
   "text": "Aston Villa won the Europa League final on 20 May but finished fourth anyway, so no sixth English Champions League place was created · UEFA rebalanced the access list and Sporting CP took the league-phase spot instead."
  },
  {
   "title": "A 39-point relegation",
   "text": "Wolves went down on 20 April and Burnley on 22 April. The last spot came down to the final day: West Ham beat Leeds 3–0 but Tottenham's win over Everton kept Spurs up, relegating West Ham with 39 points · the most for a relegated club since 2010-11, and ending a 14-year top-flight stay."
  },
  {
   "title": "Promoted and staying",
   "text": "Sunderland (7th, 54 points · the joint-best finish ever by a promoted club) and Leeds (14th) became the first promoted clubs to survive since 2022-23, after two straight seasons in which all three promoted clubs went straight back down. Burnley could not follow them: straight back down after one year."
  }
 ],
 "table": [
  {
   "pos": 1,
   "team": "Arsenal",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 26,
   "drawn": 7,
   "lost": 5,
   "gf": 71,
   "ga": 27,
   "gd": 44,
   "pts": 85,
   "qual": "UCL",
   "qual_note": "Champions League league phase",
   "elo": 1710
  },
  {
   "pos": 2,
   "team": "Manchester City",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 23,
   "drawn": 9,
   "lost": 6,
   "gf": 77,
   "ga": 35,
   "gd": 42,
   "pts": 78,
   "qual": "UCL",
   "qual_note": "Champions League league phase",
   "elo": 1673
  },
  {
   "pos": 3,
   "team": "Manchester United",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 20,
   "drawn": 11,
   "lost": 7,
   "gf": 69,
   "ga": 50,
   "gd": 19,
   "pts": 71,
   "qual": "UCL",
   "qual_note": "Champions League league phase",
   "elo": 1622
  },
  {
   "pos": 4,
   "team": "Aston Villa",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 19,
   "drawn": 8,
   "lost": 11,
   "gf": 56,
   "ga": 49,
   "gd": 7,
   "pts": 65,
   "qual": "UCL",
   "qual_note": "Champions League league phase",
   "elo": 1565
  },
  {
   "pos": 5,
   "team": "Liverpool",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 17,
   "drawn": 9,
   "lost": 12,
   "gf": 63,
   "ga": 53,
   "gd": 10,
   "pts": 60,
   "qual": "UCL",
   "qual_note": "Champions League league phase",
   "elo": 1551
  },
  {
   "pos": 6,
   "team": "Bournemouth",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 13,
   "drawn": 18,
   "lost": 7,
   "gf": 58,
   "ga": 54,
   "gd": 4,
   "pts": 57,
   "qual": "UEL",
   "qual_note": "Europa League league phase",
   "elo": 1551
  },
  {
   "pos": 7,
   "team": "Sunderland",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 14,
   "drawn": 12,
   "lost": 12,
   "gf": 42,
   "ga": 48,
   "gd": -6,
   "pts": 54,
   "qual": "UEL",
   "qual_note": "Europa League league phase",
   "elo": 1496
  },
  {
   "pos": 8,
   "team": "Brighton & Hove Albion",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 14,
   "drawn": 11,
   "lost": 13,
   "gf": 52,
   "ga": 46,
   "gd": 6,
   "pts": 53,
   "qual": "UECL",
   "qual_note": "Conference League play-off round",
   "elo": 1519
  },
  {
   "pos": 9,
   "team": "Brentford",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 14,
   "drawn": 11,
   "lost": 13,
   "gf": 55,
   "ga": 52,
   "gd": 3,
   "pts": 53,
   "qual": null,
   "qual_note": null,
   "elo": 1513
  },
  {
   "pos": 10,
   "team": "Chelsea",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 14,
   "drawn": 10,
   "lost": 14,
   "gf": 58,
   "ga": 52,
   "gd": 6,
   "pts": 52,
   "qual": null,
   "qual_note": null,
   "elo": 1511
  },
  {
   "pos": 11,
   "team": "Fulham",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 15,
   "drawn": 7,
   "lost": 16,
   "gf": 47,
   "ga": 51,
   "gd": -4,
   "pts": 52,
   "qual": null,
   "qual_note": null,
   "elo": 1487
  },
  {
   "pos": 12,
   "team": "Newcastle United",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 14,
   "drawn": 7,
   "lost": 17,
   "gf": 53,
   "ga": 55,
   "gd": -2,
   "pts": 49,
   "qual": null,
   "qual_note": null,
   "elo": 1478
  },
  {
   "pos": 13,
   "team": "Everton",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 13,
   "drawn": 10,
   "lost": 15,
   "gf": 47,
   "ga": 50,
   "gd": -3,
   "pts": 49,
   "qual": null,
   "qual_note": null,
   "elo": 1481
  },
  {
   "pos": 14,
   "team": "Leeds United",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 11,
   "drawn": 14,
   "lost": 13,
   "gf": 49,
   "ga": 56,
   "gd": -7,
   "pts": 47,
   "qual": null,
   "qual_note": null,
   "elo": 1470
  },
  {
   "pos": 15,
   "team": "Crystal Palace",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 11,
   "drawn": 12,
   "lost": 15,
   "gf": 41,
   "ga": 51,
   "gd": -10,
   "pts": 45,
   "qual": "UEL",
   "qual_note": "Europa League league phase (as Conference League winners)",
   "elo": 1462
  },
  {
   "pos": 16,
   "team": "Nottingham Forest",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 11,
   "drawn": 11,
   "lost": 16,
   "gf": 48,
   "ga": 51,
   "gd": -3,
   "pts": 44,
   "qual": null,
   "qual_note": null,
   "elo": 1468
  },
  {
   "pos": 17,
   "team": "Tottenham Hotspur",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 10,
   "drawn": 11,
   "lost": 17,
   "gf": 48,
   "ga": 57,
   "gd": -9,
   "pts": 41,
   "qual": null,
   "qual_note": null,
   "elo": 1442
  },
  {
   "pos": 18,
   "team": "West Ham United",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 10,
   "drawn": 9,
   "lost": 19,
   "gf": 46,
   "ga": 65,
   "gd": -19,
   "pts": 39,
   "qual": "REL",
   "qual_note": "Relegated",
   "elo": 1407
  },
  {
   "pos": 19,
   "team": "Burnley",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 4,
   "drawn": 10,
   "lost": 24,
   "gf": 38,
   "ga": 75,
   "gd": -37,
   "pts": 22,
   "qual": "REL",
   "qual_note": "Relegated",
   "elo": 1304
  },
  {
   "pos": 20,
   "team": "Wolverhampton Wanderers",
   "played": 38,
   "won": 3,
   "drawn": 11,
   "lost": 24,
   "gf": 27,
   "ga": 68,
   "gd": -41,
   "pts": 20,
   "qual": "REL",
   "qual_note": "Relegated",
   "elo": 1289
  }
 ],
 "table_note": "Final 2025-26 table. Checks run on the vendored data: every club played 38, points = 3W+D throughout, and the full 380-match results grid recomputes each club's W-D-L and goals exactly. League-wide goals: 1,045.",
 "elo_note": "The Margin's Elo power rating · our model, not an official statistic. Computed from all 380 verified match results (K=24, +60 home advantage, margin-of-victory weighting, everyone starts at 1500). Kick-off order isn't in our source, so ratings are averaged over 400 random match orderings. It rates how well teams actually played, game by game · not just where they finished.",
 "top_scorers": [
  {
   "player": "Erling Haaland",
   "club": "Manchester City",
   "goals": 27,
   "note": "Third Golden Boot in four seasons"
  },
  {
   "player": "Igor Thiago",
   "club": "Brentford",
   "goals": 22
  },
  {
   "player": "Antoine Semenyo",
   "club": "Bournemouth / Manchester City",
   "goals": 17
  },
  {
   "player": "Ollie Watkins",
   "club": "Aston Villa",
   "goals": 16
  },
  {
   "player": "Morgan Gibbs-White",
   "club": "Nottingham Forest",
   "goals": 15
  },
  {
   "player": "João Pedro",
   "club": "Chelsea",
   "goals": 15
  }
 ],
 "next_season_dates": {
  "start": "21 August 2026",
  "end": "30 May 2027",
  "start_note": "Starts 21 August 2026 and ends 30 May 2027 · opening round and final matchweek pushed back a week for the 2026 World Cup. Fixtures were released 19 June 2026; 33 weekend and five midweek rounds.",
  "promoted": [
   {
    "team": "Coventry City",
    "note": "Championship · back after 25 years, the longest absence in Premier League history"
   },
   {
    "team": "Ipswich Town",
    "note": "Championship · straight back up after one season"
   },
   {
    "team": "Hull City",
    "note": "Play-off final · beat Middlesbrough; first top-flight season in 9 years"
   }
  ],
  "notes": [
   "Gambling sponsors banned from the front of shirts from 2026-27.",
   "Summer window: 15 June · 31 August 2026.",
   "Arsenal defend the title."
  ]
 },
 "source": "2025–26 Premier League (rev. 1361693351, 29 Jun 2026; table and results grid cite premierleague.com) and 2026–27 Premier League (rev. 1362116400) · fetched via the MediaWiki API and cross-checked 2 July 2026. Swatches use club colours.",
 "colours": {
  "Arsenal": "#EF0107",
  "Manchester City": "#6CABDD",
  "Manchester United": "#DA291C",
  "Aston Villa": "#670E36",
  "Liverpool": "#C8102E",
  "Bournemouth": "#B50E12",
  "Sunderland": "#EB172B",
  "Brighton & Hove Albion": "#0057B8",
  "Brentford": "#E30613",
  "Chelsea": "#034694",
  "Fulham": "#55565A",
  "Newcastle United": "#3D3D3D",
  "Everton": "#003399",
  "Leeds United": "#005CA9",
  "Crystal Palace": "#1B458F",
  "Nottingham Forest": "#DD0000",
  "Tottenham Hotspur": "#132257",
  "West Ham United": "#7A263A",
  "Burnley": "#6C1D45",
  "Wolverhampton Wanderers": "#FDB913"
 }
}