How many times can a Prem side face each other in a single season?

First of all, what competitions will both Chelsea and Manchester City play in? (Well, I just use them as an example really to make things easy, any Premier League teams will do the trick hypothetically.)

Say if both sides finished top 4 in the previous season, both teams will qualify for the Champions League. Obviously, they will still (Will Still 🐐) play in the Premier League. Also, as Premier League sides they automatically qualify for the FA Cup and League Cup. Therefore, it looks like the most times that Chelsea and City play each other is 4.

I'm sorry to tell you things is not that easy. You see in Premier League, teams play each other TWICE. In the Champions League, unless it's the final, teams play each other TWICE also. Although an FA Cup is usually played one game, a tie will lead to a replay, which means Chelsea and City can play each other TWICE in the competition. Finally, a two-leg tie is played when the League Cup reaches the semi-final, which means...

IN FOUR COMPETITIONS, CHELSEA AND MANCHESTER CITY CAN PLAY EACH OTHER UP TO 8 TIMES!

Well, that's the end- Not too soon! Things started to get a little bit complicated for now on. The winner of FA Cup will play the League winner in a match called Community Shield. Say if Chelsea won the League and City won the FA Cup, they will face each other in the McDonald's Shield (coz it's sponsored by McDonald's). The total match-up is now 9. But wait a minute! What if, very unluckily, Chelsea and City have the same points, same goal difference, same goals scored and the same amount of games won, drawn and lost in the league? An additional play-off in required to decide to League winner, because surely you won't want to see both teams holding hands on the trophy presentation ceremony, right? (I'm not saying it hasn't happened before, but things are different nowadays.) Thus, we can see this banging clash between Chelsea and City up to 10 times possibly!

Now I'm not a huge fan of Gianni Infantino, but the reason why I do the Club World Cup separately is that... I think it would be a paragraph to big if I stuff this all in. The FIFA Club World Cup is basically 6 winners from 6 different continents (as far as I know there ain't an Antarctica FC) and the winner of the highest tier league of the host country play against each other for a mickey mouse cup. Say if City went on to win the Champions League (nobody except City fans will want to see this) and Super Cup, they will be representing Europe to play in the CWC. Chelsea, on the other hand, will play the competition as the Premier League winner. So, theoretically Chelsea can face Man City 11 times in a season (and beat their ass 11 times) if everything goes as planned.

With all of that said, you may still think there are more than 11 times that Chelsea and City (or any two Premier League sides) can face other. Feel free to comment and I'll continue my research on this topic.

It has been 2 years since my conclusion that two Premier League sides can play each other for up to 11 times in a season. However, things have changed a lot since then - replays were scrapped, Champions League League phase was introduced, new Club World Cup format... even City and PSG won the Champions League! I feel that an update is due.

1. Straight to extra time in FA Cup

In 2024, the FA (English Football Association, governing body of English Football) decided to scrap replays in FA Cup completely to reduce fixture congestion reason. This means any games that are still tied after 90 minutes of play will go straight into extra time and, if needed, penalties, preventing the need of scheduling a replay match.

2. New Champions League format

From 2024/25 season onwards, there will be 36 teams competing entering Champions League proper instead of 32. Rather than having 8 groups of 4 and a third-place v Europa League second place play-off to decide the teams for Round of 16, all 36 teams will compete in a single league table. Each team will play 8 different teams - 4 games at home and 4 games away. In the end, 1st - 8th will be seeded for the Round of 16 draw and 9th - 24th will have to go through a play-off to decide the remaining 8 spots for the elimination round. 25th - 36th will be completly eliminated from European competitions for the season.

3. Club World Cup revamped

FIFA wanted to make their Club World Cup more competitive and prestigious to clubs - so they turned this yearly tournament into a once every four year 32 club tournament, just like the old World Cup format (in case you didn't know, staring from World Cup 2026 there will 36 teams). The existing Club World Cup where continental champions play each other is rebranded as Intercontinental Cup.

To avoid clashes with important international tournaments (EURO, World Cup and Copa América), the first Club World Cup was held in 2025.

Chelsea and Man City can play each other 11 times in a season was my previous verdict. How does all those changes mentioned above affect the number?

First of all, they could still play each other:

3 times in the Premier League (home, away, title decider)

2 times in the Carabao Cup (two legs of the semi-final)

1 time in the FA Cup

1 time in the Community Shield

Which makes 7 meetings between the two sides so far domestically.

In the Champions League League Phase, teams from the same nation can't play each other, so the new format didn't change anything. Therefore, the maximum of games that Chelsea can play Man City in the Champions League is 2, making the grand total of games 9.

For the Club World Cup, teams from the same nation can't be in the same group. The knockout stages of the competition, just like in World Cup, doesn't have a two leg tie. That means Chelsea can only face Man City ONCE in the CWC, which takes the tally to 10.

Thanks to frozenflame for pointing out my mistake, the new Intercontinental Cup doesn't have a seventh club (i.e. the host nation's league champion). Therefore it would be impossible for two teams from the same nation to play each other in it.

So in fact I did NOT waste half an hour researching on changes because the total possible games between two Premier League sides would be 10 instead of 11 :) (you can always arrange a friendly during the summer lol0