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A One-Goal Lead at 90 Minutes Now Slips One Time in Seven

Twenty-four seasons of goal times show what the longer added time did. From 85:00 to 90:00 nothing changed. After 90:00 one-goal leads slip more than twice as often, and two-goal leads are as safe as ever.

By SoccerAnalytics 11 min read

For 21 seasons, a Premier League side leading by one goal when the clock reached 90:00 went on to win 93.3% of the time: 2,870 of 3,077 leads. From 2023-24, referees stopped adding a nominal allowance for stoppages and began adding the time actually lost. In the three seasons since, the same lead has been held 367 times in 430, 85.3%. About one in 15 used to slip away after 90:00; now one in 7 does, 2.2 times as often. Each of the last three seasons sits below all 21 before it. The change happens after 90:00. In the last five minutes before it, a one-goal lead is as safe as it ever was.

Sourcing. Every completed Premier League match on ESPN's public scoreboard from 2002-03 to the 50 played so far this season: 9,170 matches, each with the minute ESPN records for every goal. For 2016-17 onward, ESPN's match summaries add the minute each half ended. Two checks came first. ESPN's minutes reproduce the league's own published counts exactly: 102 added-time goals in 2016-17, the record before the change, and 138 in 2023-24 when the league counted them in April 2024, 12.8% of all goals at that point. And the feed lists 2009-10 twice: 357 extra rows, filed under another season's label, repeat fixtures that are already listed, and 337 of them carry a different score. We dropped them, which leaves 380 matches in each of the 24 complete seasons. Twelve matches, all before 2017-18, whose goal lists do not match the final score stay out of the timing counts, which therefore run on 9,158 matches. The data is pulled by data_layer/build_epl_goal_times.py and data_layer/build_epl_added_time.py, and every figure below is recomputed by charts/chart_epl_lead_added_time.py, which exits non-zero if any of them stops reproducing.

What changed, and when

Before 2023-24, the time added at the end of each half was an allowance: a nominal amount for each goal, substitution or injury. From the first weekend of 2023-24, Premier League referees added the exact time lost to goals and their celebrations, substitutions, injuries and other stoppages, as the league and Opta's analysts both described at the time. A year later the league trimmed the rule: the first 30 seconds after a goal are no longer added. Both announcements are listed in the sources below.

ESPN's match summaries show what that did to the clock. From 2016-17 to 2022-23 the second half ended, on average, at 90+5.3 on ESPN's clock, which shows the minute of the final whistle (90+5 is the fifth added minute). Since 2023-24 the average is 90+7.6: 90+8.1 in the first season, 90+7.1 after the 30-second trim and 90+7.5 last season. First halves went from 45+3.1 to 45+4.3. Before the change, 61.3% of second halves were over by 90+5 and 3.9% ran to 90+9 or later. Since, the figures are 17.8% and 28.8%. ESPN records the whistle in two places, the match's key events and its commentary, and the two agree on 3,825 of 3,847 matches. All 708 second-half added-time goals since 2016-17 fall by the recorded whistle.

Goals followed the minutes. Second-half added time produced 0.155 goals a match from 2016-17 to 2022-23 and 0.252 since. Last season it produced 104, the most of the 24 seasons and one more than the 103 of 2023-24, while the 90 minutes before it produced 2.36 goals a match, the fewest since 2008-09. Counting both halves, 147 of 1,045 goals in 2025-26 came in added time, 14.1%. No season before 2023-24 was above 9.6%.

When the halves ended, and what a one-goal lead at 90:00 was worth, by season. "Ended" is the average of ESPN's displayed minute for the end of each half. Source: ESPN public scoreboard and match summaries, retrieved 2026-10-05.
SeasonSecond half endedFirst half endedGoals in second-half added timeOne-goal leads at 90:00 held
2016-1790+5.145+2.968127 of 137 (92.7%)
2017-1890+5.045+2.849126 of 137 (92.0%)
2018-1990+5.245+2.972127 of 136 (93.4%)
2019-2090+5.645+3.451134 of 142 (94.4%)
2020-2190+5.145+2.750141 of 151 (93.4%)
2021-2290+5.445+3.372125 of 136 (91.9%)
2022-2390+6.145+3.649136 of 143 (95.1%)
2023-2490+8.145+4.7103116 of 137 (84.7%)
2024-2590+7.145+3.980122 of 142 (85.9%)
2025-2690+7.545+4.2104129 of 151 (85.4%)
2026-27 (50 matches)90+6.245+3.21017 of 20

Where the leads go

The chart's left panel is the headline: 21 seasons between 90.5% (2003-04) and 96.8% (2005-06), then 84.7%, 85.9% and 85.4%. The right panel is the test. Take every side leading by one at 85:00 and ask what happened to the ones that did not win. Before the change, 6.3% had lost the lead by 90:00 and not won it back, and 5.8% were still ahead at 90:00 and then failed to win. Since, 6.6% lost it before 90:00, about the same, and 12.5% lost it after. In those last minutes, the extra losses arrive after 90:00 and nowhere else.

Two-panel chart. Left: for each Premier League season from 2002-03 to 2025-26, the share of one-goal leads at 90:00 that ended in a win. The 21 seasons to 2022-23 sit between 90.5% and 96.8% around a pooled 93.3% (2,870 of 3,077). The three seasons since 2023-24, when referees began adding the exact time lost, sit at 84.7%, 85.9% and 85.4%, pooled 85.3% (367 of 430). An open marker shows 2026-27 so far at 17 of 20. Right: of the one-goal leads at 85:00, the share lost before 90:00 was 6.3% before the change and 6.6% since; the share lost after 90:00 was 5.8% before and 12.5% since.
Left: one-goal leads at 90:00 that ended in a win, by season. Right: leads at 85:00 that were not won, split by whether the lead was gone before or after 90:00. Data: ESPN public scoreboard, every completed Premier League match 2002-03 to 2026-27 to date, goal minutes as ESPN records them.

The same split from earlier checkpoints tells the same story. From every one of them, the share of leads lost after 90:00 is 1.9 to 2.3 times the old rate. From 75:00 the share lost before 90:00 also rose, from 15.3% to 18.3%, but most of that is one season. 2023-24 scored 2.89 goals a match in regulation time, the most of the 24, and lost 21.6% of its 75th-minute leads before 90:00. The next two seasons lost 16.3% and 17.5%, within about two points of the old 15.3%.

One-goal leads at four points in the match and what became of them. "Lost before 90:00": the lead was gone by 90:00 and the side did not win. "Lost after 90:00": still ahead at 90:00, did not win. Won includes the few sides that lost the lead before 90:00 and won after it. Source: ESPN public scoreboard, 9,158 matches with goal times.
Lead atSeasonsLeadsWonLost before 90:00Lost after 90:00
half-time2002-03 to 2022-233,36069.9%27.5%2.5%
half-time2023-24 to 2025-2650062.2%33.0%4.8%
75:002002-03 to 2022-233,25380.1%15.3%4.5%
75:002023-24 to 2025-2645971.5%18.3%10.2%
85:002002-03 to 2022-233,10587.9%6.3%5.8%
85:002023-24 to 2025-2644181.0%6.6%12.5%
90:002002-03 to 2022-233,07793.3%0.0%6.7%
90:002023-24 to 2025-2643085.3%0.0%14.7%

It is not about who was leading

A lead held by a stronger side is safer, and home sides hold leads better than visitors, so a change in who tends to lead could move the rate on its own. It did not. Home sides held 56.6% of the one-goal leads at 90:00 before the change and 52.8% since. At the old mix, the new home and away rates would give 85.6%, nowhere near 93.3%. The side with the better points-per-game record that season was the leader 65.2% of the time before and 64.9% since. And the drop shows up inside every group: home leaders 94.8% before and 88.1% since, away leaders 91.2% and 82.3%, leaders with the better record 95.2% and 87.8%, the rest 89.6% and 80.8%.

Two goals are still enough

None of this touches a two-goal lead. Sides two up at 90:00 won 1,679 of 1,681 times before the change and 244 of 244 since. The longer added time has made a one-goal lead fail about one time in seven. In three seasons, no side two goals down at 90:00 has come back to take a point.

What a lead at 90:00 is worth now

Points make the change concrete. Since 2023-24 the 430 one-goal leaders at 90:00 won 367 matches, drew 56 and lost 7: 3 × 367 + 56 = 1,157 points, and 1,157 ÷ 430 = 2.6907 points a lead. Before the change, 2,870 wins and 204 draws from 3,077 leads made 3 × 2,870 + 204 = 8,814 points, and 8,814 ÷ 3,077 = 2.8645 a lead. The gap is 0.1738 points a lead. At the old rate the 430 leads would have earned 430 × 2.8645 = 1,231.7 points. They earned 1,157, so 74.7 points slipped away over three seasons, about 25 points a season.

Count every match, not only one-goal leads, and the result at 90:00 differed from the final result in 484 of 7,968 matches before the change (6.1%, 23 a season) and in 129 of 1,140 since (11.3%, 43 a season). Last season had 52, the most of the 24. A match level at 90:00 is now decided after it 22.8% of the time, against 13.5% before.

The first 50 matches of 2026-27

This season's sample is small, and it points the same way. Through 20 September, the last league round before the break, sides a goal up at 90:00 held on 17 of 20 times. Three did not. Newcastle, 2-1 up at home to Liverpool, conceded at 90'+9' and drew 2-2. Bournemouth, 1-0 up at home to Everton, conceded at 90'+1'. Manchester United, 2-1 up at Everton, conceded at 90'+6'. One level match went the other way, when Manchester City beat Bournemouth 2-1 with a goal at 90'+1'.

Second halves this season have ended at 90+6.2 on average, earlier than in any of the last three seasons. The league changed several laws for 2026-27: substituted players have ten seconds to leave the pitch, clearly delayed throw-ins and goal kicks face a five-second countdown, and a player treated for an injury must stay off for a minute. Fifty matches cannot say whether those changes, or chance, explain the shorter added time. The league resumes on 10 October.

What this does and does not say

It is a before-and-after comparison, not an experiment. The timekeeping change is the obvious cause. The drop starts the season the change did, it sits after 90:00 and not in the five minutes before, it survives a season of low scoring, and it shows up for home and away leaders, stronger and weaker. Other things changed in those seasons too, and a comparison like this cannot rule all of them out.

ESPN's minutes are whole minutes. A goal at 89:30 is shown as 90' and counts as before added time, and a whistle shown as 90+7 came somewhere in the seventh added minute. ESPN once printed 89'+2' for a goal its own clock puts at 88:22; we counted it in the 89th minute.

Added time cannot be read match by match. A late goal and its celebration lengthen the added time they happen in, so long added time and late goals feed each other inside a match. That is why this compares seasons rather than matches with long and short added time.

Three seasons is a small sample. The 95% interval around 85.3% runs from 82.0% to 88.7%. That still sits wholly below the worst of the 21 earlier seasons.

A win-probability model fitted to the seasons before 2023-24 would now put a one-goal lead at 90:00 about eight percentage points too high, which is why how those models handle the clock matters more than it did. The trailing side's all-out push in those minutes is the same game-state effect that bends every other number in a match, and the World Cup's own version of the late-goal pattern is in When World Cup Goals Are Scored.

How the numbers are made

Everything here rests on one step: reading the score at 90:00 from ESPN's goal minutes. Every goal counts except those shown as 90'+N'. In Python, with each match holding its goals, the home side's id and the final score, that step looks like this; run on the same data, it finds the 3,077 and 430 leads above.

import re

def minute(shown):
    """ESPN shows "67'" or "90'+3'": return (67, 0) or (90, 3)."""
    base, added = re.match(r"(\d+)'(?:\+(\d+)')?", shown).groups()
    return int(base), int(added or 0)

def score_at_90(match):
    """Count every goal except those shown as 90'+N' (second-half added time)."""
    home = away = 0
    for goal in match["goals"]:
        base, added = minute(goal["min"])
        if base == 90 and added > 0:
            continue
        if goal["team"] == match["home_id"]:
            home += 1
        else:
            away += 1
    return home, away

def held(match):
    """None unless a side led by exactly one at 90:00; then True if it won."""
    home, away = score_at_90(match)
    if abs(home - away) != 1:
        return None
    final = match["hs"] - match["as"]
    return final > 0 if home > away else final < 0

The rest is counting: for each lead, the final result, and for each earlier checkpoint, whether the lead was still there at 90:00. Seasons run from August to July, so the June and July 2020 matches count in 2019-20.

Sources & Further Reading

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