galsaar/EnglishPremierLeagueEPLResults

Premier League Results — Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)

1. Introduction

This project analyzes match results from the English Premier League across multiple seasons.
The main research question guiding this work is:

How has home-field advantage changed over time, and did it weaken during the COVID-19 seasons when stadiums had limited or no fans?

To answer this question, the analysis is divided into two main stages:

1. Foundational EDA: Understanding the structure of the dataset, cleaning it, and exploring basic patterns.
2. Research Analysis: Investigating home-field advantage over time and examining the impact of COVID-19.

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Part 1 — Foundational EDA (Infrastructure)

2. Dataset Description

The dataset contains match-level details from the English Premier League, including:

• Home and away teams
• Full-time goals (FTHG, FTAG)
• Match results (FTR: Home/Draw/Away)
• Shots, shots on target, corners
• Match dates
• Season identifiers

Preprocessing Steps

Before conducting the analysis, several preprocessing steps were applied:

• Removed rows with missing essential fields (e.g., goals, match result, date)
• Converted the DateTime column into proper datetime format
• Verified consistency between the recorded result (FTR) and actual goals
• Removed duplicate entries
• Cleaned team and referee names from trailing spaces

These steps ensured that the analysis was performed on accurate and reliable data.

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3. Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)

3.1 Distribution of Total Goals

This visualization shows how many goals are typically scored in Premier League matches.
Most matches end with 2–3 total goals, forming a right-skewed distribution.

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3.2 Distribution of Match Outcomes (H/D/A)

This chart highlights the overall share of home wins, draws, and away wins.
Historically, home wins occur most frequently, followed by away wins and draws.

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3.3 Home vs Away Goals — Boxplot

This boxplot compares the distribution of goals scored by home vs away teams.
Home teams tend to score slightly more, but the spread is similar.

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Part 2 — Research Analysis: Home-Field Advantage & COVID Impact

After establishing the dataset structure, this section focuses on the core research question.

4. Home Win Rate by Season

This graph displays the proportion of matches won by home teams each season.
Home win rates typically fall between 43%–50%, but a sharp decline is visible during the COVID seasons.

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5. Pre-COVID vs COVID Match Outcomes

Comparing pre-COVID seasons to COVID-affected seasons reveals:

• Home wins decreased significantly
• Away wins increased noticeably
• Draws slightly decreased

These shifts support the idea that reduced fan presence weakened home-field advantage.

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6. Average Home Goal Advantage by Season

This plot shows the average goal difference (home goals – away goals) per season.
Home teams normally score 0.3–0.6 goals more, but during the 2020-21 season the advantage nearly disappeared.

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7. Key Insights

Based on the visualizations and statistical analysis:

• Home-field advantage is a consistent pattern in Premier League football.
• During COVID-19 (2019-20 and especially 2020-21), home-team performance dropped sharply.
• Away teams benefited significantly from the absence of home crowds.
• Both win-rate data and goal-difference data support the same conclusion.
• The 2021-22 season shows recovery, but not a full return to traditional levels.

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8. Conclusion

The results strongly support the hypothesis that home-field advantage weakened during COVID-19, likely due to empty stadiums and reduced crowd influence.

This analysis demonstrates how data-driven exploration can reveal meaningful trends in sports performance.

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9. Included Files

9. Included Files

You can watch the presentation video here:
https://www.loom.com/share/d83ac6e4faeb4ba2a0e87a33a134bfee

• results.csv.zip — Dataset
• Copy_of_Assignment_1_EDA_&_Dataset.ipynb — Notebook
• Visualization files:
  • Distribution of Total Goals per Match.png
  • Distribution of Matches Outcomes (H,D,A).png
  • Distribution of Home vs Away Goals.png
  • Home Win Rate by Season.png
  • Matches Outcomes - PreCovid vs Covid Seasons.png
  • Average Home Goal Advantage By Season.png
• README.md — This project summary