{"id":587503,"date":"2026-04-16T09:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T09:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/587503\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T09:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T09:57:11","slug":"premier-league-title-race-could-man-city-and-arsenal-go-to-a-play-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/587503\/","title":{"rendered":"Premier League title race: Could Man City and Arsenal go to a play-off?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/arsenal\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arsenal<\/a> and City are equal on all of the above, then the title will be decided by the winner of a play-off match.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, it can only go to this decider should Sunday&#8217;s match end 1-1, the same result as at Emirates Stadium in September.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It would leave the two sides with the same head-to-head record, as well as away goals scored in the matches against each other.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The tie-breakers as they currently stand are extremely tight too &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/arsenal\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arsenal<\/a> are three goals better off on goal difference than City, while the Blues have scored 63 goals to their opponents&#8217; 62.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A play-off match would take place at a neutral ground, with the format and timing to be determined by the Premier League board.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">During the 1995-96 season, Ferguson&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-united\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester United<\/a> and Kevin Keegan&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/newcastle-united\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Newcastle<\/a> had been going toe-to-toe for the title and the first batch of tickets had actually been printed in case a play-off match was required.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/premierleague\/status\/334641263766806528\/photo\/1\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow\">One ticket showed, external<\/a> the match would have taken place at Wembley Stadium during a midweek, with a kick-off time of 19:30 BST, but United went on to win the title by four points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Arsenal and City are equal on all of the above, then the title will be decided by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-587503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}