What is the highest scoring match in Premier League history

The highest scoring match in Premier League history is Portsmouth's 7-4 win over Reading, a game with 11 goals at Fratton Park on 29 September 2007 that no Premier League match has matched since. Six of those goals arrived in the final twenty minutes, including two in injury time, and the scoreline stands as the only game with this many goals in the English top flight in the last 36 seasons. The mark has now survived for almost 19 years, through three more 9-0s, Tottenham's 9-1 and a nine-goal thriller in west London in December 2025. The claim worth disagreeing with is that the 9-0 scorelines are the competition's great goal records. They are winning-margin records, not scoring records. The 7-4 remains unique, no Premier League game has ever reached a double-figure total for both sides since, and the team that lost the first two ten-goal games in the competition, Reading, conceded 13 of them, with goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann beaten 11 times in a single afternoon.

The only 11-goal game in Premier League history

The record game took place on the last Saturday of September 2007, and the details still look like a data-entry error. Portsmouth led 5-2 after an hour and could have been out of sight, but Reading pushed the game into chaos in the final phase. With nine different scorers, including an own goal for each side, the match shares the record for the most goalscorers in a Premier League match with Arsenal's 5-4 win at Tottenham in 2004/05. Nicky Shorey, the Reading defender, missed a penalty in the 66th minute that would have changed the shape of the endgame; Benjani scored a hat-trick for the home side; and the last twenty minutes produced six goals, two of them in injury time.

The record has context that makes it bigger. This was the first top-flight match ever to produce 11 goals, and the first to finish 7-4 since Luton Town beat Oxford United in February 1988. No game anywhere in the last 36 top-flight seasons in England has reached the same total. The Opta count also shows how the record distorts a season: 29 per cent of all Premier League goals scored at Fratton Park across the whole of 2007/08 arrived in this one game, while the other 18 matches at the stadium that season produced an average of just 1.5 goals per game. The 7-4 was not a goal explosion, it was a single afternoon when one defence stopped defending.

The 9-0 club

The biggest winning margin in Premier League history is nine goals, and it has happened four times. Manchester United beat Ipswich Town 9-0 at Old Trafford on 4 March 1995; Leicester City won 9-0 at Southampton on 25 October 2019, a result that stands as the all-time record away win in English top-flight history; Manchester United beat Southampton 9-0 at Old Trafford on 2 February 2021; and Liverpool beat Bournemouth 9-0 at Anfield on 27 August 2022.

The only other team to score nine in a game is Tottenham, in a 9-1 win over Wigan Athletic at White Hart Lane on 22 November 2009. That match still holds the record for the most goals in a single half of Premier League football, nine, and for the most scored by one team in a half, eight. Put together, the 9-0s and the 9-1 say something about how records cluster: all four 9-0s and the 9-1 came in games where one side was either already relegated, newly promoted, or in open collapse.

The ten-goal games

The 11-goal game is the ceiling, but five other matches have reached ten. Tottenham's 6-4 win over Reading on 29 December 2007, their 9-1 over Wigan in November 2009, Manchester United's 8-2 win over Arsenal on 28 August 2011, Arsenal's 7-3 win over Newcastle on 29 December 2012, and West Bromwich Albion's 5-5 draw with Manchester United on 19 May 2013, the final match of Sir Alex Ferguson's managerial career, a game best remembered for Romelu Lukaku's hat-trick for the hosts. Reading, remarkably, were the losing team in the first two ten-goal games in Premier League history, and their goalkeeper in both, Marcus Hahnemann, conceded 13 goals across the two fixtures. The most recent entry to the list is a nine-goal game rather than a ten-goal one: Fulham's 4-5 defeat to Manchester City on 2 December 2025.

What these matches have in common

The pattern is the opposite of a classic. The 7-4 produced six goals in the final twenty minutes, the 9-1 produced nine goals in one half, and the 9-0s were one-way traffic after a collapse. Match of the Day led its broadcast with the 11-goal game that night, and the numbers behind it are just as lopsided: a team has scored nine goals in a Premier League match only five times in total, four of them in 9-0 wins and once in Tottenham's 9-1. Tactic-minded teams avoid these scorelines because they stop the game from being competitive. Tellingly, the only ten-goal match that ended level, West Bromwich Albion 5-5 Manchester United, is also the one where both teams were still pushing for goals at the end, which is a different kind of game from the rest of the list. What the record book preserves is the rare afternoon when a defence stopped functioning, which is why the best goal record in Premier League history belongs to a game that was exciting for the wrong reasons, and why the losing side and its goalkeeper are part of the record as firmly as the winners.

Key takeaways

• The highest scoring match in Premier League history is Portsmouth 7-4 Reading on 29 September 2007, with 11 goals.
• Six of the 11 goals came in the final twenty minutes, two of them in injury time.
• A 9-0 has happened four times, most recently Liverpool 9-0 Bournemouth in August 2022; Tottenham's 9-1 over Wigan in 2009 is the other nine-goal win.
• Five other matches have produced ten goals, from Spurs 6-4 Reading in 2007 to West Brom 5-5 Manchester United in 2013.
• The most recent nine-goal game is Fulham 4-5 Manchester City on 2 December 2025.

FAQ

What is the highest scoring match in Premier League history?

Portsmouth 7-4 Reading on 29 September 2007, the only Premier League game to reach 11 goals.

Has a Premier League team ever scored ten goals in a game?

No. The biggest winning margin is nine, reached four times in 9-0 wins, with Tottenham also winning 9-1 against Wigan in 2009.

How many Premier League games have ended 9-0?

Four: Manchester United 9-0 Ipswich Town in 1995, Leicester City 9-0 Southampton in 2019, Manchester United 9-0 Southampton in 2021 and Liverpool 9-0 Bournemouth in 2022.

What was the most recent Premier League game with nine or more goals?

Fulham 4-5 Manchester City on 2 December 2025, a nine-goal game and the closest any side has come to the all-time record in years.