What counts as an advantage
The Premier League has a fixed 20-team, 380-match structure in the checked seasons. For each season, a home win is a match in which the home score is higher, an away win is the opposite, and a draw is level. Home advantage here means the difference between the home-win share and the away-win share.
This is a result-based definition. It does not claim that venue caused every outcome, and it does not measure the size of a win. A one-goal home victory and a five-goal home victory count equally in the result share. The stable denominator makes the percentage comparison transparent.
The result shares
The long-run pattern is clear: home wins led away wins in every season except 2020–21. Draws absorbed the remainder. The margin column is the home-win rate minus the away-win rate; positive values favour home teams, while the single negative value marks the reversal.
| Season | Home wins | Draws | Away wins | Home minus away |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011–12 | 45.00% | 24.47% | 30.53% | +14.47 pp |
| 2012–13 | 43.68% | 28.42% | 27.89% | +15.79 pp |
| 2013–14 | 47.11% | 20.53% | 32.37% | +14.74 pp |
| 2014–15 | 45.26% | 24.47% | 30.26% | +15.00 pp |
| 2015–16 | 41.32% | 28.16% | 30.53% | +10.79 pp |
| 2016–17 | 49.21% | 22.11% | 28.68% | +20.53 pp |
| 2017–18 | 45.53% | 26.05% | 28.42% | +17.11 pp |
| 2018–19 | 47.63% | 18.68% | 33.68% | +13.95 pp |
| 2019–20 | 45.26% | 24.21% | 30.53% | +14.74 pp |
| 2020–21 | 37.89% | 21.84% | 40.26% | −2.37 pp |
| 2021–22 | 42.89% | 23.16% | 33.95% | +8.95 pp |
| 2022–23 | 48.42% | 22.89% | 28.68% | +19.74 pp |
| 2023–24 | 46.05% | 21.58% | 32.37% | +13.68 pp |
| 2024–25 | 40.79% | 24.47% | 34.74% | +6.05 pp |
| 2025–26 | 42.63% | 27.37% | 30.00% | +12.63 pp |
The table can be read as a sequence of three result regimes. From 2011–12 to 2015–16, home wins remain between 41.32% and 47.11%, while away wins stay between 27.89% and 32.37%. From 2016–17 to 2019–20, home wins are higher in every row and reach the 49.21% maximum in 2016–17. The 2020–21 reversal then sits between that run and the return to a positive margin from 2021–22 onward.
Only two of the 14 home-led seasons have a margin below ten points: 2021–22 at 8.95 and 2024–25 at 6.05. The other 12 positive seasons clear ten points. That pattern supports the word persistent in a probabilistic sense: a meaningful home edge is the usual result, but the size of the edge is not fixed.
Draws are the balancing category. The 2012–13 table has 28.42% draws, leaving less room for either type of win, while 2018–19 has 18.68% draws and therefore a larger combined share of decisive matches. A high home-win share can coexist with a high draw rate or a low one, so the three columns should be read together.
The strongest home edges
2016–17 is the clearest home-dominant season in the sample. Home teams won 187 matches, 49.21% of the schedule, while away teams won 109. The 20.53-point gap is wider than the 19.74-point gap in 2022–23 and the 17.11-point gap in 2017–18.
The result is not simply a high home-win count. The same season also had 84 draws, so the home edge comes from the distribution of wins rather than from every match being decided. This is a useful reminder that “home advantage” should be expressed as a comparison of outcomes, not as a claim that home teams dominate the whole match.
At the other end, 2024–25 produced the narrowest positive gap at 6.05 points. Home teams still won more often, but the difference was less than half the 2016–17 margin. That is persistence with reduced intensity, not disappearance.
The 2016–17 row is especially informative because its home-win rate is the series maximum, but its away-win rate is not the series minimum. Away teams still won 109 matches, or 28.68%. The home edge comes from the 187 home wins rather than from away wins disappearing. The same distinction matters in 2022–23, where home wins reached 184 and the margin was 19.74 points.
At the other end of the positive rows, 2024–25 had 155 home wins and 132 away wins. That is still a 23-match home-win difference, even though its percentage-point margin is the smallest positive value in the window. Percentages show the scale relative to the fixed schedule; raw counts show the match difference. Both are useful checks on the same result.
The 2011–12 to 2019–20 stretch contains no reversal. Home wins lead away wins in each row, with the margin ranging from 10.79 to 20.53 points. The later rows do not erase that pattern, but they show why a historical average would be less informative than the full seasonal sequence.
The 2020–21 reversal
2020–21 is the only row in which away wins exceeded home wins: 153 away wins against 144 home wins. The percentages are 40.26% and 37.89%, creating a −2.37-point margin. It is the only season in which the sign changes.
The table supports the observation, but not a single explanation. The season had unusual operating conditions, and the result pattern may invite hypotheses about atmosphere, travel or team context. Those are hypotheses, not findings from this aggregate. The safest statement is that the venue split was different in this season and returned to a positive home margin in 2021–22.
One reversal matters because it tests the word “persistent”: persistent does not mean invariant.
Where the latest season sits
In 2025–26, home teams won 162 matches and away teams 114. The 42.63% home-win share is below the 2016–17 high but above the 2024–25 value. Draws were 27.37%, the highest share since 2015–16, which helps explain why the home and away shares are both lower than in the most home-dominant seasons.
The latest season therefore looks like a return to the normal direction of the series, with a moderate rather than extreme home edge. It is stronger than the 2024–25 margin by 6.58 points, but still well short of the 2016–17 maximum. The data does not justify a claim that home advantage has either vanished or become stronger over the entire period.
The useful reading is conditional: home teams retained the edge in 14 of 15 seasons, the size moved around materially, and one season reversed it.
The latest row also has a relatively high draw share, 27.37%, compared with 21.58% in 2023–24. That leaves fewer decisive matches to divide between home and away winners. A modest home margin in a high-draw season is not necessarily evidence of weak venue effects; it may simply reflect more matches ending level.
There is no claim here that the 2020–21 reversal was caused by one identifiable condition. The data is compatible with several explanations and cannot separate them. A proper causal study would need information beyond the result and venue, such as team strength, scheduling, attendance conditions and match-level context.
Reading the percentages as shares of 380 also clarifies what “persistent” means in this context. It means that the home result led the away result in almost every completed season, not that the margin was identical or that every club benefited equally. The strongest home-led rows and the narrowest positive rows are both part of the evidence. Keeping them together avoids turning a long-run tendency into a claim of constant dominance.
The reversal row is equally important for an evergreen comparison. It is not removed as an anomaly, because removing it would make the persistence claim look stronger than the record supports. Instead, it is displayed beside the return to positive margins in the following seasons. The result is a balanced description: the venue edge is the usual aggregate direction, its size changes, and one completed season changes sign.
There is also a useful distinction between persistence and magnitude. The league can retain a positive home-minus-away margin while the margin narrows, as in 2024–25, or widen it again without reaching the earlier maximum. The seasonal table captures that movement directly. It is more informative than a single fifteen-season average because the average would hide the reversal and the later recovery inside one number.
Limits and method
Data source: Xtra-Stats. The comparison includes completed Premier League matches from 2011–12 through 2025–26, with 380 matches in every listed season. Home-win, draw and away-win rates are each the relevant result count divided by 380, rounded to two decimals. The margin is home-win rate minus away-win rate.
This is a descriptive venue comparison. It does not control for team strength, fixture order, travel distance, attendance, goals, penalties or changes in the mix of clubs. It also does not imply that venue caused any individual result.