What's the Most Goals Scored in a Premier League Match?

**TL;DR: **The highest-scoring Premier League match in history is Portsmouth 7-4 Reading from 2007, with 11 goals across the 90 minutes. A small handful of other matches in the Premier League era have also reached 11 goals total. These chaotic high-scoring encounters share common patterns: relegation pressure, attacking systems clashing, defensive collapses, and games where both teams refuse to stop attacking.

Most Premier League matches finish with 2 or 3 goals total. The most common Premier League scorelines cluster tightly around modest totals. But every now and then, a match goes completely off the rails. Eleven goals in 90 minutes is the kind of result that becomes folklore. Predictors who pick those scorelines almost never get them right, but understanding what drives them helps you spot the warning signs of a chaotic match.

The Record Holder

Portsmouth 7-4 Reading, played in September 2007, holds the Premier League record at 11 goals. The match was an attacking shootout where neither team's defence could cope with the other's attack. By half-time, the scoreline already looked unusual. By full-time, it had entered the record books.

What makes the result remarkable is that both teams were having decent seasons at the time. Reading were a recently promoted side punching above their weight. Portsmouth were establishing themselves as a top-half club with a strong attacking unit. Neither team was a relegation basket case. Yet on that one afternoon, all the usual restraints disappeared and the goals just kept coming.

The Other 11-Goal Matches

A few other matches in Premier League history have reached 11 goals total. The pattern is similar across all of them. Matches with 11 or more goals tend to have these characteristics:

• At least one team in poor defensive form heading into the match
• Both teams committed to attacking football tactically
• Goals coming early to set the tone of an open match
• A defensive collapse from one side that the other side capitalises on
• Substitutions that bring on more attacking players rather than shutting up shop

Predicting these matches is almost impossible. Even when all the warning signs are present, the most likely outcome is still a match with 3 or 4 goals total, not 11. The covers the more general case of one-sided heavy defeats, but 11-goal matches are a different beast because they require both teams to score heavily.