Away goals fell. Home goals barely moved.
The Premier League produced 70 fewer goals in 2025/26 than in 2024/25, but the decline was anything but evenly distributed. Home teams scored 580 goals, five more than the previous season. Away teams scored 465, down from 540. That 75-goal drop in away scoring accounts for more than the entire league-wide decline.
SmartMatchData compared all 380 matches from each season, a 760-match sample with complete final scores and full-quality xG data. The change is visible in actual goals and in the quality of chances: away-team xG fell from 516.77 to 473.63, while home-team xG edged up from 576.71 to 582.28. The pattern is interesting, although two seasons alone cannot establish a permanent trend or explain its cause.
The headline numbers
The league recorded 1,115 goals in 2024/25, or 2.93 per match. That fell to 1,045 goals and 2.75 per match in 2025/26. Total xG moved from 1,093.48 to 1,055.91, a decline of 37.57 expected goals. The fall in actual goals was larger than the fall in xG, which is a useful reminder that chances and finishing outcomes do not move in lockstep.
Home scoring was remarkably stable: 575 goals became 580, and home xG rose by 5.57. Away scoring tells the other half of the story. Away xG dropped by 43.14, but actual away goals fell by 75. Those differences describe what happened across the two datasets; they do not by themselves identify whether finishing, opposition strength, tactical choices or ordinary variation drove the change.
Results shifted toward home teams, too
The 2024/25 season produced 155 home wins, 93 draws and 132 away wins. In 2025/26, home wins increased to 162, draws to 104 and away wins fell to 114. Away victories therefore declined by 18, while home victories rose by seven.
It would be tempting to call that proof of growing home advantage. The evidence is narrower: home teams enjoyed a stronger share of results in this particular season-to-season comparison. The fixture mix, team composition and tactical context also changed. A fuller causal study would need more seasons and additional controls.
Why xG makes the comparison more useful
A goal tally is the final outcome of thousands of attacking situations. Expected goals (xG) adds a different perspective by estimating the likelihood of individual shots becoming goals. In 2024/25, away sides scored 540 goals from 516.77 xG, finishing 23.23 above the estimate. In 2025/26, they scored 465 from 473.63 xG, finishing 8.63 below it.
That swing is not a direct measurement of finishing talent. xG models cannot capture every feature of a shot or every action by a goalkeeper. It does show why comparing goals and xG together is more revealing than looking at the scoreboard alone. For background, see Expected Goals Explained and Home vs Away Football Statistics.
What these two seasons do and do not show
The strongest conclusion is descriptive: the Premier League's reduction in goals was concentrated in away scoring, accompanied by a smaller decline in away xG and fewer away victories. The numbers do not prove that away teams became inherently weaker, that home crowds became more influential or that the same pattern will repeat.
Both samples contain 380 finished regular-season matches, with no missing final scores, missing xG, administrative results or neutral-venue fixtures. The 2024/25 and 2025/26 xG totals are calculated using the stored SmartMatchData match statistics, with the same inclusion rules in both seasons. All figures are rounded for display; per-match averages use 380 matches as the denominator for each season.
For a closer look at the second season's team rankings, read our Premier League 2025/26 xG analysis or explore the Premier League page. These figures offer context about past performance, not a guarantee of future results.