Football is in a constant state of flux. Teams rise and fall, tactical trends evolve, and squads turn over every few seasons. Yet amid this chaos, some aspects are more stable, and one of them — constantly experienced, if rarely discussed — is the weather. Over a long season, Premier League sides battle not just against opposing players but the elements, too. Armed with some historical weather data, we set out to answer some of football’s most pressing meteorology questions, such as: Were Stoke City really at an advantage on cold, windy nights? Do weather conditions have a meaningful impact on playing style? And who is the Premier League’s all-weather great?
To investigate, we used hourly data from Visual Crossing, a leading provider of weather information, to analyze average rainfall, wind speed, temperature, snowfall, and humidity for every Premier League match. Accurately recording weather conditions is no easy task, so the dataset comes with some limitations. Minute-by-minute data wasn’t available, and it doesn’t account for stadium-specific quirks, such as exposure to the elements. But across the 12,705 Premier League matches played to date, it offers a solid proxy for the conditions under which English football is played.
When it comes to the Premier League and weather, there’s really only one place to start. Since Andy Gray questioned in 2010 whether Lionel Messi could handle the physicality of a “cold night at the Britannia Stadium,” Stoke City has become football’s litmus test for a player or team’s resilience in unforgiving conditions.
While the premise was absurd — imagining Messi (27 goals in 35 appearances against English sides) in a logistically implausible scenario and preemptively writing him off — the choice of Stoke was fitting. Under Tony Pulis, they mastered a direct, robust style, typified by Rory Delap’s famous long throws into the box.
The architectural structure of Stoke’s home ground compounded the challenge for visitors. Unlike modern enclosed bowl-style stadiums, the Bet365 Stadium, as it has been called since 2016, consists of four distinct stands, with wide open corners that funnel swirling gusts onto the pitch, adding an unpredictable, elemental factor to an already demanding environment. The family section of Stoke’s website warns visitors that the ground has its “own microclimate.” Viscerally, the idea of Stoke as a tough midweek fixture has such obvious appeal, but does the data support it?
To answer this question, it’s necessary to define what exactly constitutes such a match. The fabled “cold night in Stoke” has undergone an evolving etymology, with various modifiers added and removed from Andy Gray’s original phrase. Some factions insist on rain, others demand howling winds, while the Pulis purists argue it must strictly take place on a Tuesday. Yet with Stoke having played only 30 midweek home Premier League games in their history, applying all these conditions shrinks the sample to a point where it is impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff — some leeway is required.
Calling on the powers of creative license, we settled on the following criteria: 1) The match must take place on a midweek evening, 2) the temperature must be below 10C (50F), 3) wind speeds or gusts must exceed 13 miles per hour (20kmh) — the entry point for a moderate breeze according to the Beaufort scale.
And, sensationally, the results confirm that Stoke really are the masters of the harsher Premier League elements. They are undefeated in their 11 home games that fall under these criteria, averaging 2.27 points per game — a rate that, if applied to this season, would put them four points behind leaders Liverpool. Liverpool have fallen victim to the ‘cold, windy night in Stoke’ curse, suffering a 3-1 defeat in a 7.45pm kick-off on Boxing Day 2012, with Jonathan Walters bagging a double.
No side in Premier League history has a larger points-per-game (PPG) improvement in their home form when playing midweek in cold, blustery conditions than Stoke. The graphic below demonstrates that they see an average increase of 0.75 PPG in these matches, far ahead of the next biggest improvers, Everton, underscoring how well they adapted to the elements at home. By contrast, north London clubs Arsenal and Tottenham have struggled to tame a cold wind on their turf, losing over half a point in these conditions.
It’s difficult to pinpoint why Stoke thrived in these harsher climates, but the wind likely played into their hands, complementing their direct, physical style of play. Premier League teams are generally skilled enough to impose their game regardless of the conditions — data shows a weak correlation between weather conditions and underlying performance metrics. Yet there is some evidence that windy conditions encourage more direct, stop-start football. Gustier conditions are linked to an increase in long balls and, perhaps more pertinently, more throw-ins — providing Stoke with additional opportunities to unleash Delap’s devastating launches. Matchday rain being associated with more yellow cards is another weather-related quirk that tallies with our intuitive understanding of the game — slippier conditions make mistimed tackles more likely.
Access to extensive Premier League data not only helps us definitively prove the ‘cold, windy night in Stoke’ theory, it also allows us to be needlessly pedantic about football’s more trivial moments. Take Cole Palmer, for example. His signature celebration — a playful shivering gesture, paired with his ice-cool composure in front of goal — has earned him the nickname ‘Cold Palmer’ on social media. However, in a strictly literal sense, he is far from the coldest Premier League footballer. Palmer’s matches have averaged a balmy (by UK standards) 13.7C, well above the league’s 10.8C average. In fact, only two percent of Premier League players have played in warmer conditions on average — perhaps “Mild Palmer” would be the more meteorologically accurate moniker.
So, who truly deserves the reputation as the Premier League’s most ice-cold finisher? Step forward, Dimitar Berbatov. The Bulgarian, known for his serene disposition and velvet touch, ranks as the top goalscorer in sub-zero matches with nine goals — although five of these came in Manchester United’s 7-1 mauling of Blackburn Rovers in November 2010, skewing the results somewhat. Unsurprisingly, this list is dominated by players who spent a considerable amount of their career playing in the colder north of England.
Mohamed Salah, however, boasts a far better goals-per-game record in freezing-cold temperatures and can make a strong case as being the Premier League’s ultimate all-weather player. Salah is the only player who averages a goal every two games or better in warm weather (20C+), sub-zero, rain, and windy conditions. Recent Carabao Cup final goalscorer Alexander Isak is hot on his heels, with the best record in windy and rainy conditions — no doubt helped by Newcastle United’s status as the league’s most northerly club.
Ultimately, though, elite players and teams are conditioned to thrive regardless of weather-related obstacles. While conditions may subtly influence playing style or cause performance dips, the best sides adapt, whether battling gale-force winds or sweltering in a May dead-rubber match. Even so, Stoke City’s reputation for tough, humbling conditions looks set to last much longer than their spell as a Premier League club did.
