Is the Thursday/Sunday effect a real thing?

There was a time when qualifying for continental competition was the preserve of the few, but, following the expansion of the European calendar, now almost half of the teams in the Premier League are getting a shot at glory.

For those clubs that find themselves competing in either the Europa League or the Conference League, the demands of Thursday/Sunday football can often be used as an excuse for poor performances domestically, but is this something that actually happens?

Well, in order to find out, we have gone back to the start of the 2024/25 season in each of these two UEFA competitions, tracking how every English club has performed on a Sunday in the top-flight following a Thursday night European game.

2024/25

The 2024/25 campaign couldn’t have gone any better for English sides, with Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United contesting the Europa League Final and Chelsea winning the Conference League.

Interestingly, the Red Devils boasted a perfect record in Premier League away games after playing at home in continental competition on a Thursday night, winning 1-0 at Fulham and 3-0 at Leicester City:

It was when the matches were the other way around that the Blues excelled, however, claiming 17 points from a possible 21 at Stamford Bridge after competing on the road in Europe three days earlier:

Unfortunately, combining the results of the three teams offers few clues when it comes to making Europa League predictions or Conference League predictions, though the similarity between the Home/Away and Away/Home categories is startling:

One thing is for sure, you would certainly expect sides playing back-to-back home games to perform significantly better than those making consecutive trips, yet there is only a two-point difference between these two groups.

2025/26

The fact that Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest had to face each other in the semi-finals of the Europa League meant that the 2025/26 season was marginally less successful for English clubs than its predecessor, though the Villans still went on to lift the trophy, as did Crystal Palace in the Conference League.

It was at Villa Park that Unai Emery’s side laid the foundations for their success, winning five of six Sunday Premier League matches after also playing at home in Europe on a Thursday night:

In terms of making football predictions, the revolving door of managers at Nottingham Forest ensured that they proved far harder to get a handle on. Who would have thought, for example, that the Reds would fare significantly better in top-flight away games following a European trip than they would after competing in continental competition at the City Ground?:

Having played host to European opposition on a Thursday night, Crystal Palace lost both of their away matches in the Premier League on a Sunday, though the Eagles were unbeaten in five home games, albeit that only one of these ended in victory:

Between them, these three English clubs secured just one point from a possible 18 in top-flight trips following a European home fixture, with this coming in Aston Villa’s 2-2 draw at Burnley in May:

The trio proved to be quite formidable in the Home/Home category, however, only tasting defeat twice in 15 matches, so the double chance bet would have been one to target were the odds conducive at the time.

2026/27

The 2026/27 campaign is still in its early stages, so we don’t have an awful lot to work with. That said, Bournemouth’s 2-0 win against Sunderland and Brighton & Hove Albion’s 5-0 success against Crystal Palace have played a major role in shaping the data that we do have.

This is because all four of the clubs involved in these two fixtures are competing in either the Europa League or the Conference League this season, with both the Cherries and the Seagulls playing at home on the Thursday night prior to their victories and both the Black Cats and the Eagles taking to the road ahead of their defeats:

As a direct consequence of these two meetings between European representatives, the overall picture looks broadly how we might expect, with the consequences of a busy week of travelling weighing heavily.

OVERALL

In terms of the bigger picture, we can see that playing at home in the Premier League on a Sunday following a Thursday night European game is beneficial. In fact, teams doing this have won 58.33% of the available points when the continental clash has also been on their own patch and 47.62% of the available points when it hasn’t been:

By way of contrast, clubs that make a domestic trip on the back of a European encounter have secured just 37.88% of the available points when playing at home in the first of these contests and only 40.35% of the available points when their first match is also on the road.

In the top-flight fixtures immediately following the next set of continental clashes, Sunderland follow up a home game against Dinamo Zagreb by entertaining Chelsea, whilst Crystal Palace host Liverpool after first welcoming Hoffenheim to Selhurst Park.

Given how infrequently European participants lose the second of these contests (4 times out of 24), there should be value to be had in backing the Black Cats and the Eagles to avoid defeat as part of your Premier League betting.

As for Bournemouth, they have to cope with the demands of back-to-back away matches for the first time, whilst Brighton will be looking for a result similar to the one that they enjoyed against Aston Villa the last time that they returned to the AMEX following a European trip.