Chelsea match-goers had better get used to late journeys home next season, with a bizarre scheduling bottleneck set to turn the Blues into a permanent fixture on Monday Night Football.
Chelsea’s presence on Monday Night Football during the 2025/26 season highlights just how heavily television executives rely on the club for prime-time viewing.
With the Blues undergoing a transitional year outside of consistent weekend European slots, major broadcasters capitalised on their wide-open schedule. 33 fixtures were played outside of that Saturday 3pm slot, they were all selected for live broadcast in the UK across Sky Sports, TNT Sports, and Amazon Prime.
Chelsea only had two Premier League games scheduled on a Monday during the entire 2025/26 campaign, resulting in one win and one defeat.
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Chelsea set for more Monday nights next season
Dale Johnson pointed out the fact that nine teams in Europe is going to mean extra Chelsea, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur on Monday Night Football.
Essentially, when a team plays in the UEFA Europa League or the UEFA Conference League, their games are always held on Thursday nights. Because players need a mandatory recovery period, those teams cannot play their domestic Premier League match on the following Saturday. Their weekend games must be pushed back to either Sunday or Monday.
So, to get massive teams like Chelsea, Spurs, and Newcastle on prime-time TV without causing a scheduling conflict, broadcasters will heavily utilise them as the default, go-to fixtures for Monday Night Football.
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What is the ruling on Monday night games?
Sky Sports is supposed to pick each team a maximum of five times on a Friday or Monday across 32 matches.
However, teams like Manchester United, Everton, West Ham United and Leeds United all played more than the maximum of five, so nothing is guaranteed.
To put things into perspective, Burnley were only chosen on a Friday or Monday a couple of times,and Brighton were picked just once, so it comes down to the size of the club.
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