Premier League fixtures September 20 and 21 2026: every game in hand is played at once

Four Premier League fixtures are left in this round, and between them they involve exactly the eight clubs that have played four matches. Manchester City, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester United, Sunderland, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and Fulham. No other club is on the card. The other twelve have already played five. Forty six matches have been played so far and these four make fifty, which is exactly five rounds for twenty clubs. This is the round that squares the table, and it does it in one go.

Every figure here comes from the September 20 update. Coventry's 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest on September 20 is counted. The four fixtures below are not, so this is written as of the September 20 update rather than through games of September 20. Clinch numbers assume the worst case throughout, that every rival takes every point still available to it. None of this is a projection and none of it is a probability.

Manchester City against Sunderland decides whether the top of the table has a gap in it. City and Arsenal are level on 12 points. City are first on goal difference, plus six against plus four, and City hold the game in hand because Arsenal spent theirs losing 3-0 at Brighton on September 19. A City win makes it 15 points and a three point cushion. A draw makes it 13 and a one point lead. A defeat leaves the two clubs level on 12 with first place hanging on goal difference alone. Sunderland come fourteenth on 4 points from four matches, one win, one draw, two defeats. A win takes them to 7, level with ninth placed Chelsea.

Leeds against Crystal Palace is one of two fixtures in this round involving a club that carries a top four clinch number. Four clubs have one: Manchester City and Arsenal at 96 points, Brighton at 98, Leeds at 100. Two of those four hold a game in hand, Manchester City and Leeds, and both of them play in this round. Read the Leeds 100 carefully. Leeds have 8 points and 34 matches left, so the most they can finish on is 110, and a clinch number of 100 means taking 92 of the 102 points still on offer before the top four stops depending on anybody else. That is a measure of distance, not a target. What the fixture moves is immediate. Leeds are sixth on 8 points, unbeaten with two wins and two draws, and beat Newcastle 4-1 at home on September 15. A win takes them to 11, above third placed Brighton on 10 and above every club in the division except Manchester City and Arsenal. Palace are seventeenth on 3 points and a win takes them to 6.

Bournemouth against Liverpool is the game in hand that has moved the table least. Liverpool are tenth on 6 points, unbeaten, with one win and three draws from four. Thirty four matches remain and their top four tragic number is 34, so only losing every single remaining match would put the top four out of reach. The points are where this fixture actually lands. A win at Bournemouth takes Liverpool to 9, out of tenth and level with fourth placed Brentford and fifth placed Everton, one behind third placed Brighton. A fourth draw takes them to 7 and leaves them with one win in five. Bournemouth are sixteenth on 3 points from four, no wins, three draws and a defeat, and their safety clinch number is 100 points from a maximum of 105. A first win of the season takes them to 6 and level with Liverpool, who would be left exactly where they started the day.

Fulham against Manchester United on Monday the 21st is the only fixture on its date and the only one of the four between two clubs in the bottom half. Fulham are twentieth on 1 point, no wins, one draw and three defeats. Manchester United are thirteenth on 4 points, having lost 1-0 at home to Manchester City on September 14. A Fulham win takes them to 4, level on points with what Manchester United have now, and lifts them off the bottom whatever Crystal Palace and Bournemouth do that day, clear of Tottenham on 2 and Coventry on 3. A draw leaves them level with Tottenham on 2 and still last. A United win takes them to 7 and level with Chelsea. Only two clubs in the division carry a relegation tragic number at all, Tottenham and Fulham, and in each case the number is exactly the number of matches the club has left, 33 and 34, which is to say it would take losing every game still to come.

Twelve points are available across the four fixtures, and they can only go to clubs currently ranked first, sixth, tenth, thirteenth, fourteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and twentieth. Nobody ranked second to fifth is playing. Arsenal, Brighton, Brentford and Everton watch a round that can reshape the top and the bottom and cannot touch the block directly beneath the leaders. Arsenal are the clearest case. They have already played their five, they have nothing to do for the rest of the round, and they can finish it either first or second depending entirely on what Manchester City do to Sunderland.

Then the league stops. The next fixtures on the schedule are on October 10, nineteen days after Fulham against Manchester United. The four listed for that date are Arsenal against Leeds, Ipswich against Fulham, Aston Villa against Brentford and Chelsea against Bournemouth. Of those, Arsenal against Leeds is the only meeting between two clubs that carry a top four clinch number, 96 and 100, and the only one featuring such a club at all. The other six clubs listed on October 10 carry no top four clinch number. Every one of them carries a safety clinch instead, from Brentford's 94 to Fulham's 102, the points total that would make staying up independent of everyone else. Three of the eight clubs playing this round are straight back on the 10th: Leeds, Fulham and Bournemouth. Everyone else waits, with the table finally level behind them.

How to read these numbers. A magic or clinch number is the minimum further points that guarantee an outcome even if every rival takes everything still available to it. A tragic number is the further losses after which the outcome is impossible even if the club wins everything left. A blank means no run of that club's own results can settle it yet, which five matches into a season is most of the table. Ties are counted against the club in question, so our clinch can trail an official announcement by a day. The live table is at, the remaining fixtures at, the European and relegation places at, and scenario by scenario results at. Each club's own answer sits on its team page, /epl/team/11 for Manchester City and for Leeds among them.