Playing at home has always been worth something in football. But how much, and is it shrinking? We went through every Premier League result from 2015-16 to 2025-26, 4,180 matches, to find out. The data tells a clear story: home advantage almost vanished when fans were locked out, came back when they returned, and has settled a little below its pre-pandemic level.
Season by season
| Season | Home wins | Draws | Away wins | Home points per game | Away points per game | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | 41.3% | 28.2% | 30.5% | 1.52 | 1.20 | +0.32 |
| 2016-17 | 49.2% | 22.1% | 28.7% | 1.70 | 1.08 | +0.62 |
| 2017-18 | 45.5% | 26.1% | 28.4% | 1.63 | 1.11 | +0.51 |
| 2018-19 | 47.6% | 18.7% | 33.7% | 1.62 | 1.20 | +0.42 |
| 2019-20 | 45.3% | 24.2% | 30.5% | 1.60 | 1.16 | +0.44 |
| 2020-21 | 37.9% | 21.8% | 40.3% | 1.36 | 1.43 | −0.07 |
| 2021-22 | 42.9% | 23.2% | 33.9% | 1.52 | 1.25 | +0.27 |
| 2022-23 | 48.4% | 22.9% | 28.7% | 1.68 | 1.09 | +0.59 |
| 2023-24 | 46.1% | 21.6% | 32.4% | 1.60 | 1.19 | +0.41 |
| 2024-25 | 40.8% | 24.5% | 34.7% | 1.47 | 1.29 | +0.18 |
| 2025-26 | 42.6% | 27.4% | 30.0% | 1.55 | 1.17 | +0.38 |
Our own calculations from the match results published by Football-Data.co.uk. "Gap" is home points per game minus away points per game across all matches in the season.
The empty-stadium experiment
From June 2020, when the league restarted after the first lockdown, until May 2021, most Premier League matches were played behind closed doors. That gives us a natural experiment:
| Period | Matches | Home wins | Away wins | Points gap | Goal difference per match |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| With fans (all other matches) | 3,708 | 44.9% | 31.1% | +0.41 | +0.30 |
| Mostly behind closed doors (17 Jun 2020 – 16 May 2021) | 452 | 38.9% | 38.5% | +0.01 | +0.07 |
Without crowds, home advantage effectively disappeared. In 2020-21, for the only time in this period, away teams won more matches than home teams. That matches what researchers found across European leagues: a large study of 15 leagues found home advantage roughly halved without fans.
Key point: If home advantage collapses when fans disappear, the crowd is a big part of it. If it does not disappear completely elsewhere, travel and familiarity matter too.
Has it come back?
Yes, but not quite to where it was. Splitting the fan seasons into two halves:
- 2015-16 to March 2020: a gap of +0.46 points per game.
- 2021-22 to 2025-26: a gap of +0.37 points per game.
That is a modest decline, and the season-to-season swings are large: 2024-25 had a gap of only +0.18, while 2022-23 reached +0.59. Five seasons is not enough to say whether the drop is a lasting trend or noise.
Why it might be shrinking
Several explanations are often suggested, none proven by these numbers alone:
- VAR, which may reduce decisions influenced by crowd pressure.
- Better travel and preparation for away teams.
- Tactical convergence, with away teams more willing to press and attack.
Watch out: A single season's home record can be distorted by schedule, injuries and a few results. Treat any one-season figure as noisy, and compare several seasons before drawing conclusions.
To see how much single results depend on chance, use the xG match calculator. For the 2025-26 season in detail, read The 2025-26 Premier League Season in Numbers.
- With fans, Premier League home teams averaged about 0.41 more points per game than away teams (2015-16 to 2025-26).
- Behind closed doors, the gap fell to almost zero, and 2020-21 had more away wins than home wins.
- Home advantage returned with fans, slightly below its pre-pandemic level.
Sources
- English football results and data — Football-Data.co.uk
- Home advantage during the COVID-19 pandemic: analyses of European football leagues — McCarrick and others, 2021
Premier League and Champions League by the numbers.