Premier League 2019-20 Season Review: How It Worked

The 2019-20 Premier League season was decided by a format that has not changed since the league dropped to 20 clubs in 1995-96. Each club played 38 matches, home and away, producing 380 fixtures across the campaign, with three points for a win and one for a draw. Master that mechanism and the rest of the season, from the title race to the relegation run-in, comes into focus.

The mechanism: how the 2019-20 season was decided

The Premier League ran a double round-robin in 2019-20. All 20 clubs played each other twice, once at home and once away, which gave every side exactly 38 matches. Multiply the 20 clubs by 38 matches and divide by two and you get the 380-match season total that set the campaign's rhythm. The calendar allowed no dropped fixtures: every postponement had to be rescheduled within the same campaign.

Points were simple: three for a win, one for a draw, zero for a defeat. That column decided the season for Liverpool and Manchester City exactly as it did for the club finishing bottom. When clubs ended level on points, the league went down the tiebreaker chain. Goal difference came first, then goals scored, then head-to-head record. If two clubs were still inseparable and the position decided the title, relegation or European qualification, a play-off at a neutral venue was the final resort. The system was designed so that every result could be ranked.

The bottom three were relegated to the Championship. Replacing them from the division below were three clubs: two promoted automatically and one via the play-off. Relegation and promotion were therefore a straight swap of three in, three out.

What was at stake: European qualification

The rewards for a high finish were locked into the format.

Finish	Competition
Top four	Champions League league phase
Fifth and FA Cup winner	Europa League
League Cup winner	Conference League play-off

That pecking order is why clubs like Arsenal and Chelsea treated league position as the clearest route to Europe, and why cup runs mattered even for sides whose league form dipped.

If a cup winner had already qualified through the league, the place passed down the table rather than being lost. That pass-down rule kept European football alive for clubs who missed qualification on the first count. Additional Champions League places could also be earned through UEFA coefficient performance, which meant the number of English clubs in Europe was not fixed by the top four alone.

History: how the Premier League format got there

The Premier League was founded on 20 February 1992 as the FA Premier League, created when First Division clubs broke away to negotiate their own broadcast deals. The first season, 1992-93, ran with 22 clubs. For 1995-96 the league cut that to 20, and the format has held ever since. That is why the 2019-20 season looked structurally identical to the mid-1990s game: same number of clubs, same 380-match calendar, same points system.

Squad rules added another layer. Each club registered a 25-man squad list for players over 21, with at least eight of those homegrown. Homegrown meant trained in England or Wales for three years before turning 21, not the player's nationality. Under-21 players did not count against the 25, which is how clubs could carry extra young options. The rule affected the transfer market as much as the pitch, because every club was shopping from the same limited pool of eligible players. For a club like Tottenham Hotspur, the homegrown quota shaped recruitment, academy promotion and the balance of the matchday bench.

The substitution rule changed how matches were managed. Five substitutions were allowed per match, but only in a maximum of three windows plus half-time. Managers could use all five changes but could not stretch them across five separate stoppages, which forced tactical groupings of changes.

Edge cases and common confusions

The tiebreaker order trips people up. Goal difference comes before goals scored, and goals scored comes before head-to-head. A club that lost to a rival twice but had a better overall goal difference would sit above them, not below. The tiebreakers only reached head-to-head when goal difference and goals scored were identical, and a neutral-venue play-off only came into play when the deadlock decided the title, relegation or European qualification.

Promotion numbers confuse people too. Three clubs go down and three come up, but not all three promoted clubs arrive the same way: two automatic and one via the play-off. The play-off is the only route that involves extra matches.

The European pass-down rule is easy to misread. If the FA Cup winner already qualified for Europe through the league, the cup place did not disappear, it passed down the table. The same logic applied to the League Cup winner's Conference League spot.

The homegrown rule is about training, not passports. A foreign player who trained in England for three years before turning 21 counted as homegrown; an English player trained abroad did not. That distinction shaped every 25-man squad across the campaign.

Finally, five substitutions does not mean five stoppages. The limit is five changes in three windows plus half-time, a detail that mattered for managers protecting leads or chasing games late in the season.

FAQ

Q: How many matches are played in a Premier League season? A: 380. Each of the 20 clubs plays 38 matches, home and away.

Q: How many clubs are relegated from the Premier League? A: Three. The bottom three go to the Championship and are replaced by three promoted clubs.

Q: When was the Premier League founded? A: It was founded on 20 February 1992 as the FA Premier League. The first season, 1992-93, had 22 clubs before the league reduced to 20 in 1995-96.

Q: How many substitutions does each team get? A: Five per match, made in a maximum of three windows plus half-time, one of the defining rules of the 2019-20 Premier League season.

Key takeaways

• The 2019-20 season used the 20-club, 38-match format in place since 1995-96, producing 380 matches.
• The bottom three were relegated and replaced by three promoted clubs: two automatic, one via the play-off.
• Tiebreakers ran points, goal difference, goals scored, then head-to-head, with a neutral-venue play-off only for deadlocks that decide the title, relegation or European qualification.
• European qualification: top four to the Champions League league phase, fifth and the FA Cup winner to the Europa League, League Cup winner to the Conference League play-off.
• Five substitutions were allowed per match, in a maximum of three windows plus half-time, a core rule of the 2019-20 Premier League season.