—- Away teams continue to perform above average in the Premier League, winning 40pc of all matches in the most recent round of fixtures.

West Ham’s victory at Wolves on Monday night followed victories for West Brom, Manchester City and Liverpool away from home over the weekend as visiting teams continue to perform better in the absence of home fans.

Research from sports data providers Sportmonks shows that the average win rate for away sides in the Premier League over the past five years stood at 0.3, but that figure has grown in the last year with away teams now winning more matches than home teams in the absence of any home advantage.

Using the most recent round of action – Gameweek 30 – as evidence, away teams are performing 33pc better than they were with fans inside grounds but this figure is a reflection of an ongoing trend in the Premier League.

In the period between June and January, the gap between home and away teams was narrowed due the lack of home advantage and that has continued to narrow in the previous four months.

In the past five years with fans in grounds (2014-March 2020), home teams won at an average of 0.45 per game (compared to 0.30 for away sides), but between June 2020 and January 2021, these figures changed to 0.40 and 0.36 respectively.

(Data in infographic accurate up until January 1, 2021)

In the months since then (January to April), that trend has continued, with away teams now winning more matches than home teams overall.

Since Gameweek 18, away teams have won 52 of 128 Premier League matches at an average of 0.41 wins per game, compared to just 48/128 wins for home teams at 0.38 – marking the first time that away teams have enjoyed an advantage over a sustained period of time.

This is a 36.7% increase in away wins from the five-years of results studied, while home teams have seen a 15.6% drop-off in their wins without home advantage since fans were barred as a result of the pandemic.

The impact of playing without fans has not only affected the form of home and away teams in terms of wins, but also in how they are refereed.

Data shows that away sides were shown more yellows per game than home sides with fans in the grounds (1.81 for away sides  to 1.59 for home teams) but that dropped to 1.51 to 1.54 without fans in the grounds, suggesting referees are also swayed by home advantage.

To access the full dataset and breakdown of Premier League figures: https://www.sportmonks.com/blogs/home-alone-football-crowd-data/.

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