AceOdds has reworked the premier league table 2025/26 as if video assistant referees had never intervened, and the result is a notably different midtable and a handful of altered outcomes across the division. The sports-betting analytics firm said its data team recorded every VAR intervention in the 2025/26 Premier League season and recalculated the standings without them.
The PGMOL Key Match Incidents panel has separately concluded there were 17 VAR mistakes this season, and the AceOdds exercise highlights how those interventions have redistributed points. Tottenham Hotspur would sit on 39 points in the VAR-free table, moving above West Ham United and level with Leeds United. Wolves would still be relegated, unchanged on 17 points from 34 matches. Nottingham Forest would gain six additional points and be in 15th; Bournemouth would tumble from seventh to 13th; Brentford would fall from ninth to 12th. Crystal Palace would be up to 11th, Fulham would move one place to ninth thanks in part to the overturned Josh King goal at Chelsea, and Everton would be eighth.
The recalculation also redraws the picture beyond the top table numbers. Sunderland are described as a promoted side sitting in 12th who could still chase European qualification, trailing Brighton by only four points, while Arsenal and Manchester City remain neck-and-neck at the top with four games to go. The analysis says Manchester United, Liverpool and Aston Villa look to have sealed Champions League football for next season, but sixth place is still up for grabs and Nottingham Forest, West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur were fighting to avoid the drop.
The AceOdds work and the KMI panel list concrete incidents that moved points. Liverpool, the KMI review found, had only one clear VAR mistake against them all season — a first-game decision when Marcos Senesi handled to stop Hugo Ekitike and escaped a red card. Liverpool then suffered a controversial call late in the campaign when they lost 3-2 to Manchester United after a VAR decision left Benjamin Sesko's goal standing. Manchester City were denied a penalty they should have had in a narrow defeat to Newcastle, and Everton were denied a penalty in their 1-0 loss to Arsenal. Brighton were denied two penalties they should have had. Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and Brentford each suffered two calls the panel judged wrong; West Ham, Leeds United and Wolves have all been hit by mistakes as well.
Other high-profile examples include Manchester United being denied penalties against Brentford and Wolves, and Wolves being named as beneficiaries of three VAR errors over the campaign. The panel’s breakdown shows Tottenham Hotspur had six mistakes go against them and four go in their favour — an inconsistent pattern that has left questions about how the interventions changed results rather than a clear winner or loser from the technology.
The tension in these findings is twofold. On the one hand, the official KMI tally of 17 mistakes is small relative to the season’s number of interventions; on the other, AceOdds’s reconstruction suggests those 17 incidents were decisive enough to move places with real financial and sporting consequences — European qualification, midtable pride, relegation. That contradiction is embodied in comments made after Liverpool’s defeat: one high-profile figure complained publicly that VAR interventions have repeatedly gone against his side this season, even though the KMI review counts only a single wrong decision against them.
The single most consequential unanswered question sharpened by the AceOdds recalculation and the KMI panel’s 17 mistakes is whether the Premier League and its refereeing bodies will treat this season’s official error count as evidence that VAR needs substantive change before the final four matches — when every point left on the table matters.
