Table of Contents
With just a few hours
remaining in 2025, we look ahead to the new year and the major
Premier
League records that we may see broken in
2026.
That’s it. Another year in the bank.
2025 began with Arsenal winning and it ended with Arsenal
winning. Sadly for them, there wasn’t quite enough winning in
between to end their Premier League title drought, though Gunners
fans will be hopeful the new year brings a change of luck in that
respect.
The signs look pretty good for Mikel Arteta’s side, but Arsenal
winning their first Premier League title for 22 years will be by no
means the only notable narrative to keep an eye on in 2026.
Here, we’ve identified seven major Premier League records that
may well tumble in 2026.
Fewest
Points in a Premier League Season
Wolverhampton Wanderers ended 2025 on a relative high. Following
a dismal start to the 2025-26 season, they wrapped up the year with
a commendable – and deserved – point at Old Trafford.
However, even taking that 1-1 draw with Manchester United into
account, Wolves are on track to take the most unwanted record of
them all.
Since 2007-08, Derby
County have been infamous for only managing to earn 11 points over
the course of the season, and that remains the record low for a
single campaign.
For a while last season, many thought Southampton would be the
ones to finally give Derby a reprieve from such an association, but
they ultimately accumulated 12 points.
Considering it took 17 years for another team just to get fewer
than 16 points in a single season, Derby would’ve been forgiven for
thinking there’d never be another challenger to their record.
But Wolves have reached the halfway point of 2025-26 with just
three points; it’s a pretty handy marker because it makes the maths
rather simple. Essentially, Rob Edwards’ men are on course to win
just six points this term.
They are averaging a measly 0.16 points per game, which is
obviously even less than Derby (0.29) in 2007-08.
Could the point at Old Trafford be the start of a moderate
improvement? If it isn’t, Derby’s class of 2007-08 may finally know
peace.
Most
Defeats in a Premier League Season
Not to labour the point, but Wolves are on course for an
all-timer of a season – in the bad sense, obviously.
We’ve summarised what they need to do to avoid breaking Derby’s
points record, but there’s also the matter of most defeats
in a single campaign. Again, the Rams also come into focus
here.
While posting that meek haul of 11 points in 2007-08, Derby
suffered 29 defeats. It’s actually only a shared record for most
losses in a single Premier League season, though there’s a small
caveat.
Ipswich Town also suffered 29 defeats during the 1994-95 Premier
League campaign, but that was a 42-game season so had more matches
in which to reach that total than Derby did.
With that in mind, then, Derby’s 29 defeats is the record for a
38-game Premier League season; all but three PL campaigns have
required teams to play 38 matches.
Wolves are well on their way to that marker. If their second
half of the season is to match their first half, they’d suffer 32
losses as they’ve already been beaten 16 times.
A few teams have come close to breaking this record recently.
Huddersfield Town (2018-19) and Sheffield United (2023-24) each
lost 28, while Watford (2021-22) suffered 27 defeats. It’ll take
something astonishing to prevent Wolves at least entering the
conversation.
Most
Goals by a Player in a Premier League Season
Erling Haaland currently holds the record for the most goals scored in a Premier League season,
netting 36 in his first campaign in England in 2022-23. The
Manchester City striker broke a competition record that had been
shared by Andrew Cole and Alan Shearer for 28 years.
Now, three seasons later, Haaland is on course to challenge his
own record. With 19 goals from Man City’s first 18 games of the
2025-26 campaign, the Norwegian is two goals off the Premier League
record for most scored at the turn of the year within a season –
that is also a record he already holds from his exceptional 2022-23
season (21).
Man City have 20 matches remaining in 2025-26, starting with a
New Year’s Day trip to Sunderland, and Haaland needs 18 more goals
to eclipse his record-breaking 36 from his debut Premier League
campaign.
While it’s very unlikely he’ll find anywhere near enough goals
to break the all-time top-flight seasonal record set by Everton’s
Dixie Dean (60) in 1927-28, he could become the first player to
surpass 36 goals in a single English top-flight campaign since Ron
Davies in 1966-67 (37).
Most
Premier League Appearances Ever
When a serious injury restricted James Milner to just four
Premier League outings in 2024-25, the likelihood of him managing
to stick around long enough to break the competition’s
all-time appearances record looked lower than it’d been for
years.
Milner’s 2024-25 was a nightmare. His initial injury was deemed
to be “stable”, he said, after a blow to his knee in training, but
his hamstring “reacted” a few days later during an August 2024
match against Arsenal.
A knee operation and knee reconstruction followed. While
frustrating, he was only expected to be out until December, but
during the surgery, he suffered nerve damage that left him unsure
“if I could walk normally again, never mind play football”.
Thankfully, he made his comeback on the final day of the 2024-25
season before being handed a one-year extension to his contract at
Brighton, and he’s managed to make 10 league appearances this
term.
His most recent, in Tuesday’s 2-2 draw at West Ham, took him to
648 Premier League appearances, meaning he is just five behind
Gareth Barry (653) for the record.
If he plays in each of Brighton’s next five games, Milner will
go level with Barry on 31 January against Everton. This would give
him the chance of breaking the record a little over a week later on
8 February at home to Crystal Palace.
Either way, with that horror injury a thing of the past, time is
on his side regardless of him turning 40 this coming Sunday.
Youngest
Premier League Goalscorer
Max Dowman may not have been able to break the record for
youngest
player to appear in the Premier League, making his debut 54
days older (15 years, 235 days) than teammate Ethan Nwaneri (15y
181d) had been, but Arsenal’s latest prodigy could yet become the
competition’s
youngest goalscorer.
Dowman turned 16 on New Year’s Eve; the current record holder
for youngest Premier League goalscorer is James Vaughan (16y,
270d).
Nice and simple, then: Dowman has 269 days from Wednesday (31
December) to break Vaughan’s record. That gives him until Saturday
26 September 2026.
Of course, the fact there’s obviously no Premier League football
in June and July immediately reduces the time available to him,
while it’s also worth noting he’s expected to miss all of January
after being ruled out for two months with ankle ligament damage in
early December.
Clearly, it’s not a given that Dowman will break this particular
record. After all, he has only made two Premier League appearances
this term.
But the talent he’s shown during his fleeting first-team outings
is enough for us to suggest he’s at least got a chance, and we’ll
take that considering it’s a record that’s stood since April
2005.
Most
Assists in a Premier League Season
Rayan Cherki and Bruno Fernandes share the lead atop the Premier
League assists chart this season with seven apiece. Although hardly
a record-breaking pace at the halfway point of the season, it’s one
to keep an eye on nonetheless.
Our focus here will be on Cherki, because he’s assisted seven
times in just 644 minutes on the pitch in 2025-26 as we head into
the new year – that’s less than half the playing time of Man Utd
captain Fernandes (1,477).
With Manchester City still having 20 Premier League games to
play this season, there are 20 opportunities for Cherki to rack up
the 14 assists he needs to surpass the competition record of 20 in a season. That marker was set by
Thierry Henry in 2002-03 and matched by Kevin De Bruyne in
2019-20.
On a minutes-per-assist basis, Cherki is creating goals more
frequently than any other player in Premier League history. His
average of 92 minutes per assist in 2025-26 is faster than anyone
to have 5+ assists in a Premier League campaign, eclipsing Cesc
Fàbregas (111 minutes) in 2016-17.
But how likely is it that Cherki sets a new record of 21 assists
in a season? As we said before, he needs 14 over a maximum 20
possible appearances.
Six players have assisted 14+ goals over a 20-game spell in
Premier League history before now: Fàbregas (October 2019) and
Mesut Özil (December 2015) both managed to assist 16 in 20
appearances, while Dennis Bergkamp (September 2002), Henry (May
2003), Fàbregas (December 2014) and De Bruyne (October 2022 and
October 2017) managed 15 assists inside 20-game spells.
Most
Last-Minute Winners in a Premier League Season
As we head into 2026, there have already been 16 Premier League
games decided by a last-minute winning goal in 2025-26.
With 186 matches coming before 1 January 2026 this season, that
means 8.6% of Premier League games in 2025-26 have been decided by
goals scored in the 90th minute or later; it’s the greatest
proportion seen in a Premier League campaign.
The record tally for a Premier League campaign is 27 (7.1%), set
in 2023-24. That means we need just nine of the remaining 194 games
in 2025-26 to be won by a goal in the last minute or added time to
set a new record.
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