How Often Do 0-0s Happen in the Premier League?

Roughly 7 to 9% of Premier League matches end 0-0, with the exact figure varying by season. That works out to around 27 to 35 goalless draws across a 380-game campaign - rare enough that 0-0 is rarely the right pick, but common enough that it shows up most weekends.

The goalless draw is the scoreline predictors love to hate. Pick it and you look brave when it lands and silly when it does not. Avoid it entirely and you will miss the obvious 0-0s when they happen. Understanding when 0-0s are likely makes the difference between predicting them well and predicting them at random.

Why 0-0s Happen

In any league with strikers as good as the Premier League's, scoring zero goals takes a specific combination of circumstances. Some matches just have low expected goals on both sides. Some have high xG that gets wasted. Either way, the underlying causes tend to repeat. We covered the basics in our guide to predicting clean sheets and goalless draws, but the short version is that 0-0s happen when both sides struggle to create or finish.

The most common contributors:

• Two defensively organised teams meet and cancel each other out
• One side parks the bus and the other lacks a clinical edge
• Both teams are without their first-choice strikers through injury
• The fixture sits in a congested midweek run when squads are tired
• Bad weather, especially heavy wind or rain, suppresses chance creation
• The match has low stakes - end-of-season dead rubbers tend to drift

When 0-0s Spike

Across a Premier League season, the rate of 0-0s is not evenly spread. Certain match types and certain phases of the campaign produce more goalless draws than others.

The clearest patterns:

• Mid-table vs mid-table fixtures where neither side dominates the ball
• Newly-promoted sides with strong defences playing other low-block teams
• Cold winter midweeks, especially in January when squads are deepest in fatigue
• Matches between two sides struggling for goals - look at the bottom of the goals-scored table
• International break returns, when teams have had patchy preparation