Aston Villa suffered more fouls than any other Premier League club in 2025/26. Wolves committed more than anybody else. Those two distinctions helped produce an extraordinary contrast in the league’s foul statistics.
Villa finished with a +92 foul balance, having suffered 471 fouls while committing just 379. Newcastle United were their nearest challengers on +55, while Wolves finished bottom with −91.
The difference between Villa and Wolves was 183 fouls across their respective season-long balances. But the more revealing story lies in how the three clubs arrived at those figures.
Why Aston Villa finished so far ahead
Foul statistics usually tell us how often a team commits offences. But every club also has another total: the number of fouls committed against its players.
Using FBref’s 2025/26 Premier League miscellaneous statistics, FIVDA compared those two figures for each club.
The calculation is straightforward:
Foul balance = Fouls suffered − Fouls committed
A positive balance means a team suffered more fouls than it committed. A negative balance means the reverse.
Villa’s league-leading +92 was built on two important figures. Their players suffered 471 fouls, more than any other Premier League club, while Villa themselves committed 379.
Across 38 fixtures, that works out at approximately 12.4 fouls suffered and 10.0 committed per match. On average, Villa received around 2.4 more foul decisions in their favour than against them in each league game.
FIVDA has also examined Aston Villa’s wider 2025/26 season, providing additional context for the club’s campaign.
Their closest challengers, Newcastle, provide a particularly useful comparison.
| Club | Fouls suffered | Fouls committed | Foul balance |
| Aston Villa | 471 | 379 | +92 |
| Newcastle United | 440 | 385 | +55 |
| Wolves | 403 | 494 | −91 |
FBref 2025/26 Premier League statistics; foul balances calculated by FIVDA.
Villa and Newcastle committed almost the same number of fouls. Newcastle’s total of 385 was just six higher than Villa’s 379, a difference of less than one foul every six matches.
The greater separation came at the other end of the calculation.
Villa suffered 31 more fouls than Newcastle, averaging around 12.4 per match compared with Newcastle’s 11.6.
Those two differences explain the entire 37-foul gap between their balances: Villa suffered 31 more fouls and committed six fewer.
It is a more interesting distinction than the ranking alone suggests. Newcastle also finished with a sizeable positive balance, but Villa combined the league’s highest number of fouls suffered with a slightly lower committed total than their nearest challenger.
Wolves were almost the exact opposite
At the other end of the table, Wolves recorded a foul balance of −91.
Their players suffered 403 fouls during the season, while Wolves committed 494 — more than any other Premier League club.
That works out at approximately 10.6 fouls suffered and 13.0 committed per match.
Compared with Villa, Wolves suffered 68 fewer fouls but committed 115 more. Together, those differences explain the 183-foul gap between the clubs’ season-long balances.
It is not a figure describing their head-to-head meetings. It compares the difference between fouls suffered and committed across each club’s full 38-match campaign.
The contrast is particularly striking because the final balances were almost mirror images: Villa on +92 and Wolves on −91.
Yet their underlying records were not mirror images at all.
Villa’s advantage came from suffering the most fouls in the division while committing considerably fewer than Wolves. Wolves’ negative balance, meanwhile, was heavily influenced by their league-high committed total.
That makes the comparison more informative than simply observing that one club finished at the top and the other at the bottom.
Villa and Wolves did not just experience different relationships between fouls suffered and committed. They also occupied opposite ends of the league in two separate raw statistics.
What makes foul balance worth examining?
The value of the calculation becomes clearer when the individual totals are considered alongside the final ranking.
A conventional leaderboard for fouls suffered would place Aston Villa first. A ranking of fouls committed would put Wolves at the top.
FIVDA’s foul balance connects those two observations, showing how the decisions awarded for and against each club compared across the season.
Newcastle demonstrate why that additional perspective matters. Their committed total was remarkably close to Villa’s, yet the difference in fouls suffered was enough to leave them 37 behind on the balance measure.
Wolves provide an even stronger contrast. Their 494 committed fouls substantially outweighed the 403 they suffered, producing the league’s most negative balance.
These figures do not establish which clubs were treated most fairly by referees or which players behaved most responsibly. They record fouls awarded, not whether every decision was correct or why particular challenges occurred.
What they do reveal is how differently familiar match statistics can combine across an entire Premier League season.
Villa’s +92 was not simply an unusual number at the top of a ranking. It reflected the league’s highest fouls-suffered total, almost identical committed figures to Newcastle, and a dramatically different record from Wolves, who committed the most fouls of all.
That is what makes foul balance interesting: it turns two familiar statistics into a comparison that exposes differences neither leaderboard tells quite as clearly on its own.
Main image is by David Bayliss on Unsplash.
