Recent Premier League seasons have been prolific for teams recovering after conceding the first goal. But which teams are most dangerous from such situations and who struggles to convert scoring first into points?
When Everton supporters saw the ball nestle into the corner of the Aston Villa net following Thierno Barry’s cute chip over Emiliano Martínez on Sunday afternoon, they’d have been forgiven for not getting too excited about the potential of winning all three points.
Not only were Villa on an eight-game winning streak at home in the Premier League, but Everton also hadn’t won at Villa Park in 10 years. Crucially, Barry’s 59th-minute strike was the opening goal of the game, and Unai Emery’s side have excelled at recovering from going a goal behind in 2025-26.
Since the end of September, Villa have conceded the first goal in Premier League matches against Fulham, Tottenham, Leeds, Brighton, West Ham and Chelsea, but gone on to turn the game around on every occasion. Those six comeback wins follow on from Villa recording a Premier League-high seven last season after conceding the first goal in a match. Only nine teams in Premier League history have won 7+ games in a single season after conceding first.
Overall, it’s Aston Villa who unsurprisingly lead the Premier League rankings this season for points gained after conceding the first goal (18), but Sunderland have also performed brilliantly after seeing opponents open the scoring in 2025-26.
Régis Le Bris’s side have conceded the first goal in 12 of their 22 league games this season but have gone on to suffer defeat in just five of those, picking up four wins and three draws after going behind (16 points recovered).
Brighton & Hove Albion also secured a point after conceding first in Monday’s 1-1 draw at home to Bournemouth. Charalampos Kostoulas’s exceptional overhead kick means that the Seagulls have now won three and drawn five of 13 such matches in 2025-26, and they have avoided defeat more often (eight) than any other team after conceding first this season.
Interestingly, Manchester City are the only team yet to recover a single point from a Premier League match in which they have conceded the first goal, but they also lead the league for the fewest matches in which they have conceded first (four).
They conceded first against Tottenham (35th minute), Aston Villa (19th minute), Newcastle United (63rd minute) and Manchester United in the derby last weekend (65th minute) and went on to lose each time.
It’s part of a longer trend for City, with Pep Guardiola’s side seemingly lacking the capability to break down a low block against a team who have scored first.
On the last 14 occasions that they have conceded first in the Premier League – a run going back to November 2024 – City have recovered just seven points (W2 D1 L11), despite their opponents opening the scoring inside 20 minutes in seven of those games. They have totalled just 10.7 expected goals (xG) when in a losing game state (1,372 mins) across those 14 matches – an average of 0.70 xG per 90.
Lucking for City, they have scored first in more Premier League games this season than any other side (17), only losing one of those matches – a 2-1 defeat at Brighton on 31 August.
Their inability to react positively to going one-nil down is one reason why they are seven points behind Arsenal in the race for the Premier League title, though.
The Gunners have been the standout team this season, especially when scoring first. Mikel Arteta’s side have won all 13 Premier League games in which they’ve scored first in so far in 2025-26 – the only team with a 100%-win rate in such situations. And in seven of those 13 games, they have scored the opening goal following a corner-kick.
Liverpool’s 1-1 draw at home to Burnley on Saturday afternoon was just the second time that they’ve dropped points across 12 games in which they’ve scored first, while Manchester United have also got an unbeaten record after scoring first in the competition in 2025-26.
The Red Devils’ win over Man City on Saturday means that they have scored first in 14 different Premier League matches this season and haven’t lost any of them (W8 D6). They have already scored first in more matches this season than in the entirety of last campaign (12).
It is Bournemouth who have dropped the most points after scoring first in the Premier League this season, with the Cherries drawing five (including Monday night’s 1-1 draw at Brighton) and losing two matches after opening the scoring. That means they have dropped 16 points from such situations, three more than West Ham (15). Andoni Iraola’s side have now failed to win any of their last five matches in which they’ve scored first in the Premier League (D3 L2).
After opening the scoring early in matches, teams can sometimes fall into the trap of attempting to defend that lead for the remainder of the game.
It’ll hardly come as a shock that teams who open the scoring in Premier League games later have greater success than those who score early, but the numbers are interesting regardless:
In Premier League history, under two-thirds of teams who have opened the scoring in the first 15 minutes of a match have gone on to secure all three points. In fact, teams that score the first goal inside the opening five minutes of games have ended up losing in nearly a fifth of such occasions (19.2%).
No team in Premier League history have scored the first goal of a match in the final 10 minutes and gone on to lose that game (488 different matches), with the latest any team has opened the scoring and ended up losing being in the 79th minute. That misfortune fell to Middlesbrough in December 2008, as despite Tuncay Sanli putting them 1-0 up on 79 minutes, Hull City came from behind to secure an unlikely 2-1 win.
Brentford weren’t far off setting a new Premier League record earlier this season in their 2-1 away defeat at Sunderland. Igor Thiago scored first in the 77th minute, but an Enzo Le Fée penalty (82 mins) and a winner from Wilson Isidor deep into added time gave the Black Cats a remarkable comeback victory at the Stadium of Light.
Overall, in Premier League history, the team scoring the first goal in a match will end up winning far more often than not (68.8%), but recent seasons have seen a rise in the number of games won by teams conceding first.
The last four Premier League seasons are among the top six to see the highest proportion of games lost by teams scoring first. Last season was an all-time high (16.5%), while this campaign currently sits sixth in the rankings (13.8%).
Of course, there are some logical explanations for this. More time being added on at the end of games in recent seasons allows more opportunity for a comeback, plus the increased number of substitutions has allowed teams to bring on fresh legs late on in games.
Despite the slightly decreasing importance of opening the scoring in a Premier League game in recent seasons, how you respond to going a goal ahead or a goal down in a game can prove the difference between a title and heartache, or relegation and dramatic survival.
Arsenal are bucking that trend with their dominance when scoring first. If they keep up their record of winning every game that they score first in, there’s little chance anyone can stage a comeback to stop them securing their first Premier League crown since 2004.
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First Goal Wins: Just How Important is It to Open the Scoring in a Premier League Game? Opta Analyst.
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