As the final whistle sounded at Goodison Park in Liverpool, England on May 28, 2023, the stadium erupted in celebration. Everton’s 1-0 win over Bournemouth propelled them to improbable safety and a 70th consecutive season in the Premier League. Leicester City, champions in 2016, dropped into the bottom three, condemning them to the ignominy of relegation less than a decade after hoisting the title.
‘Decision Day,’ the final week of the season, where all games are played concurrently, has long been the most exciting day of the Premier League. While titles and European spots are often decided here, the real drama occurs in the relegation battle, where teams whose seasons have been derailed may get one final chance to save themselves and preserve their coveted Premier League spot for another year.
Unfortunately for neutrals, Everton’s dramatic win was the most recent relegation battle the league has seen. 2024’s Luton Town team, closest to safety, was still six points behind Nottingham Forest. Leicester’s 2025 team fared even worse, finishing a whopping 13 points away from retaining their Premier League status. Whereas in the past, there have been so-called ‘great escapes,’ as teams considered dead and buried have saved themselves with late runs of form, these past few years have seen none of that drama. However, that looks poised to change in 2026.
With Wolverhampton and Burnley looking long gone, there is one more relegation spot that teams are aiming to avoid. The frontrunners for that spot, until recently, were West Ham. The Hammers had a horrible first half of the season, but under new manager Nuno Espírito Santo, the Hammers have enjoyed a dramatic uptick in form. With three wins in their last five games, they’ve closed the gap between themselves and 17th to just three points. If they keep up their current form, they should survive.
The team above them, Nottingham Forest, is in much worse shape. Forest entered the season on the back of their greatest league finish since 1995, but it has been repeatedly derailed by a series of off-field decisions. New sporting director Edu Gaspar’s signings have failed to deliver, and erratic owner Evangelos Marinakis has already gone through three managers.
Manager Sean Dyche’s sacking last week, driven by a 0-0 draw against Wolves, is a reactionary gamble, especially considering that he had Forest picking up points regularly. Moving on from Dyche, known as a ‘survival specialist,’ could prove to be their downfall. His replacement, Vítor Pereira, was already fired by Wolverhampton earlier in the season. It may be a tough ask for Pereira to right the ship.
Improbably, Tottenham Hotspur sit in 16th. Without a win in 2026, Spurs are in massive jeopardy. Manager Thomas Frank was finally fired last week, a decision that had been a long time coming, but the team’s problems do not all lie with its former coach. Spurs’ squad is desperately low on quality and has been bogged down by injuries to key players all year. Finishing 17th last year was seen as a blip as Tottenham concentrated solely on the Europa League, a tournament that they eventually won. There will likely not be that saving grace this year.
Still in the Champions League, Spurs will be playing more games than any of their other lower-table rivals. Interim coach Igor Tudor is a strange choice; Tudor is relatively inflexible when it comes to his tactics. His teams have always played a defensive back three rather than a back four, a shift that Tottenham may not have the personnel for.
Leeds United is, unlike the other teams in this conversation, not having a bad season. The assumption for any newly promoted team is that they will be immediately relegated, so for them to even be in this position is a success. Leeds’ summer recruitment, targeted at improving the squad’s physicality and solidity, has worked quite well. Though their attack can be short on goals, a solid defense has allowed them to grind out points that promoted teams often struggle to earn. While they may not have the pure quality of the other teams in this fight, the lack of a toxic atmosphere should itself be enough to make them favorites to stay up.
Despite a good start to the season, Brighton have tailed off as injuries and bad form have taken a toll on their squad. Under young head coach Fabian Hürzeler, Brighton have slowly dropped down the table after a solid start to the season. While their form is awful, and their squad is not nearly as talented as in years past, relegation would be a shock.
Finally, Crystal Palace have fallen behind despite their phenomenal run over the past 12 months. Winning their first trophy in history, then a second, and earning European competition for the first time were huge accomplishments. Since their FA Cup success last May, however, Palace have lost a number of their best players, including captain Marc Guéhi and key attacking midfielder Eberechi Eze. With manager Oliver Glasner becoming increasingly frustrated with the board, a lack of quality signings to replace the players they’ve lost, and squad morale in freefall, if Palace aren’t careful, they could drop out of the Premier League entirely.