Home advantage has long been seen as a key factor in football, but is it still as strong as it once was? And does travel distance play a bigger role than we realise? To find out, we looked at data from the last three seasons across England’s top four leagues.

📊 Key Stats

Across the top four divisions, home teams average 1.56 points per game (PPG) compared to 1.18 for away sides. That breaks down into 43.6% home wins, 31.0% away wins, and 25.4% draws.

Home vs Away: Result Percentage (All 4 Divisions 22/23-24/25)

The size of home advantage varies across the leagues. League One shows the smallest gap between home and away results, while League Two has the biggest.

Travel also plays a role. Unsurprisingly, away teams earn the most points when travelling under 50km and the fewest when travelling over 300km. Draws are also less common in short-distance games at just 22.1% compared to the overall average of 25.4%.

🦁 Premier League:

On average across the three-season window, in the Premier League, home teams have performed better with an average of 1.58 PPG compared to 1.19 away, a gap of 0.39.

Looking at each season individually, we can see that the advantage for the home team is decreasing rapidly, with an advantage for the home team of 0.59 PPG in the 2022/23 season, decreasing to 0.41 in 2023/24, and rapidly falling to 0.18 last season. Ultimately, the home advantage is still there and should be considered, but over the last three seasons, it has massively dropped, and if this trend were to continue, it could even reverse to an away advantage this season.

Distance matters in the Premier League. Away teams travelling under 50km average 1.28 PPG, but that falls to 1.17 between 50–150km. It holds steady at around 1.19 up to 300km, before dropping again to 1.10 for journeys beyond 300km.

Average Away PPG by Travel Distance (Premier League)

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 EFL:

The Championship shows the strongest home advantage of the four leagues, with 1.58 PPG at home versus 1.16 away, a gap of 0.41. Travel patterns here differ from the Premier League. Teams travelling less than 50km perform worst with 0.97 PPG, likely due to the intensity of derby matches and their atmospheres. Beyond that, the trend aligns more with the rest of the leagues, with 50–150km trips producing the highest away PPG at 1.23, gradually falling to 1.10 beyond 300km.

League One has the smallest difference between home and away teams, with only 0.32 PPG separating them. Notably, in League One in the last season, there is almost no relationship between PPG and the distances travelled, with away teams getting 1.2 PPG for distances under 50km, which slightly increases to 1.24 PPG for those over 300km.

League Two matches the Premier League for overall home advantage at 0.39 PPG. However, travel has the biggest impact here. Away teams earn 1.38 PPG for trips under 50km, the highest across all leagues, but only 1.07 when travelling beyond 300km, the lowest of any division.

Home and Away PPG across the seasons (EFL)

Average Away PPG by Travel Distance (EFL)

Teams that are much stronger at home

• Liverpool (Premier League): 2.42 PPG home vs 1.67 PPG away (+0.75)

• Aston Villa (Premier League): 2.07 vs 1.35 (+0.72)

• Newcastle United (Premier League): 2.05 vs 1.4 (+0.65)

• West Brom (Championship): 1.87 vs 1.07 (+0.8)

• Plymouth Argyle (League One): 1.88 vs 0.99 (+0.9)

• Tranmere Rovers (League Two): 1.57 vs 0.84 (+0.72)

Looking at these teams, there are two that stand out, Newcastle and Plymouth Argyle, which demonstrate the effect distance travelled has on away teams. As they are both located in remote areas in terms of football clubs, meaning that over the past three seasons, they have not had any games within 50km, and more than half of their matches have been over 300km away. This shows that they have a bigger advantage at home, as the away sides generally have to travel far, and a disadvantage away, as they have to travel long distances.

Home PPG Minus Away PPG

Teams that are much stronger away

• Burnley (Premier League): 1.77 vs 1.69 (+0.08)

• QPR (Championship): 1.14 vs 1.20 (−0.06)

• Barnsley (League One): 1.56 vs 1.66 (−0.11)

• Salford City (League Two): 1.37 vs 1.46 (−0.09)

A similar but opposite effect can be observed with these clubs, as they are all based in areas with a high number of football clubs. QPR is based in London, and the remaining teams are located in the North West area of England, meaning there often is not too much travel for visiting clubs, giving them a smaller advantage at home, and when travelling away, they get a smaller disadvantage, as they often do not have to travel as far.

Home PPG Minus Away PPG

Final Thoughts

Across the last three seasons, home advantage remains a key feature of the English game, with an average of 1.56 PPG for home teams and 1.18 for away teams, making a 0.38 PPG home advantage across the top four English divisions. This advantage is evident across all leagues, however, in the Premier League, it is declining, with the figure dropping to only 0.18 in the 2024/25 season.

The distance travelled by away teams also has a significant impact on results, with away teams that travel shorter distances having a significantly higher PPG on average than teams with longer journeys.