Following a major overhaul of the bonus-point system for the 2025-26 season, further tweaks are being made.
Players will no longer be punished for being tackled, something which did count towards bonus points last season.
That change is likely to affect attacking midfielders the most. Nine of the top 10 most-tackled players in the Premier League last season were attacking midfielders, including Chelsea’s new signing Morgan Rogers and Manchester City duo Antoine Semenyo and Jeremy Doku.
City summer signing Elliot Anderson also featured among the most-tackled players last term.
Full-backs will also benefit from this. England duo Djed Spence (Tottenham) and Nico O’Reilly (Manchester City) were among the six defenders to have been tackled the most last term, with Brentford’s Michael Kayode topping that list.
There will be fewer opportunities for defenders to benefit from both defensive contributions and bonus points. The number of clearances, blocks and interceptions (CBIs) needed to earn a BPS point – used to calculate bonus points – has increased from two to three. That is meant to make it less likely for defenders to score high amounts of defensive contribution points and bonus points.
There is also a change to how goalkeeper saves are recorded. Previously, goalkeepers earned two BPS points for a save against a shot from outside of the penalty area and three for one inside the area. Now, all saves will earn two BPS and the ‘outside of the penalty area metric’ has been removed.
However, goalkeepers will earn an additional BPS point when denying a ‘big chance’ where the player shooting is expected to score.
The number of BPS points for saving a penalty has dropped from eight to seven, but goalkeepers will also take an additional point for the ‘big chance’ saved. That effectively means nothing has changed.
There will also be a later lockdown for when bonus points are finalised. This has changed from one hour after full-time to 09:00 UK time the morning after that match, allowing Opta to complete its post-match data review so bonus points are calculated as accurately as possible.
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