The Happiest Football Fans in the Premier League and Scottish Premiership according to Fan Selfies Cover

The Happiest Football Fans in the Premier League and Scottish Premiership according to Fan Selfies

by Oddspedia Experts
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Do you think your team's fans are the best and happiest in all football? Is your reputation for being an angry mob unfounded? Oddspedia used AI facial recognition to scan 15,000+ Instagram selfies from Premier League and Scottish Premiership football fans at their club stadiums. The goal? Find out which clubs have the happiest, saddest, and angriest supporters.
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Premier League

Oddspedia used 10,000 selfies from Instagram images tagged at Emirates Stadium, Old Trafford, and each of the 20 clubs' stadiums of the Premier League. Using AI facial recognition software, we were able to analyse the sentiment of the fan faces shown to reveal who genuinely are the happiest fans? It also revealed the saddest and angriest fans.

Premier League: Brighton & Hove Albion fan selfies were the happiest

Oddspedia's research found that Brighton & Hove Albion (59.4%) fan selfies had the highest number of 'happy' sentiments, making them the happiest club in the EPL. While their current league position of mid-table safety and security may not be much to crow about, Brighton & Hove Albion fans have the luxury of living in one of the nicest parts of the UK.

They were closely followed by Manchester City (54.6%) and Arsenal (52.1%) came second and third for cheeriest fans. Checking the Premier League table will show you why – the two sides are neck and neck in a race for the EPL title. 

Premier League: Everton and Newcastle fans among the saddest in English football

Down at the other end of the Premier League table and the other end of our study: Everton fans, currently in 15th place in the league, were deemed the saddest, with 10.1% of fan selfies classed as "sad".

After a complicated few years of accusations of breaches of the Financial Fair Play rules and turmoil in the manager's office with three different managers in three years, it's easy to understand why Evertonians are less than satisfied with their team.

Struggling Nottingham Forest was found to have the second saddest fans (9.8%), and surprisingly, previously high-flying, cash-rich Newcastle United was third (8.7%). That in itself may be the cause of their fans' disappointment: the richest club in the world currently sits seventh in the Premier League table—this may fall short of many fans' expectations.

Premier League: Relegation candidates Luton Town have EPL's angriest fans

Oddspedia's research found relegation candidates, Luton Town fans, are the angriest when 7.2% of their selfies were tagged "angry". Mid-table AFC Bournemouth (6.5%) and Wolverhampton Wanderers (6.15) came second and third.

Why would Bournemouth and Wolves fans be so angry? Maybe it's Bournemouth's stadium, with The Athletic ranking Vitality Stadium as the worst in the EPL, ranking it 20th out of 20 for its atmosphere, 18th for location, and 19th for design. Perhaps it's the lack of attacking football at Molyneux that's keeping Wolves fans from cracking a smile, with only five EPL teams scoring fewer goals than Wolves have in the 23-24 season.

See the complete data here:

Team Happy Sad Angry Confused
Arsenal 52.1% 7% 3.2% 1.3%
Aston Villa 40.4% 5.6% 5.6% 2.4%
Bournemouth 27.5% 7.4% 6.5% 3%
Brentford 45.7% 7.8% 3.6% 1.7%
Brighton & Hove Albion 54.9% 5.2% 1.8% 1%
Burnley 44.4% 5.8% 5.5% 1.7%
Chelsea 46.5% 7.1% 2.8% 1.3%
Crystal Palace 40.7% 7.3% 4.2% 1.7%
Everton 45.4% 10.1% 3.6% 1.8%
Fulham 47% 7.4% 3.2% 1.3%
Liverpool 45.1% 6.7% 3.8% 1.4%
Luton Town 46.6% 4.9% 7.2% 2.8%
Manchester City 54.6% 5.2% 2.3% 0.9%
Manchester United 41.9% 8.4% 2.7% 1.5%
Newcastle United 30.5% 8.7% 6% 2.7%
Nottingham Forest 39.3% 9.8% 3.2% 1.9%
Sheffield Utd 46.1% 6.1% 4.5% 2.2%
Tottenham Hotspur 44.7% 7.3% 4.3% 1.4%
West Ham 48.7% 6.9% 2.5% 1.1%
Wolves 39.8% 6.2% 6.1% 2.1%

Scottish Premiership

North of the border, Oddspedia analysed 6,000 fans' Instagram photos and faces tagged at Celtic Park, Ibrox, and each of the 12 Scottish Premiership Clubs. Which selfies revealed the happiest fans? Will it be Celtic or Rangers? Which team lives up to its reputation as the angriest fans? Oddspedia reveals all.

Scottish Premiership: Celtic FC win the Old Firm Derby of Fan Happiness

Celtic FC was found to have the happiest fans in Scottish Premiership football by the Oddspedia study, with 58.4% of fan selfies expressing 'happy' sentiments, with Hearts (49.7%) and Hibernian (49.6%) second and third for cheeriest fans.

Given Celtic's recent track record, it's easy to understand why The Bhoys are smiling.

Celtic has won nine of the last ten Scottish Premiership titles, five of the previous ten Scottish Cups, and seven of the last ten Scottish League Cups. Their dominance in Scottish football is only rivalled by Old Firm enemies, Rangers. However, Rangers' fans are a less happy bunch…

Scottish Premiership: Celtic FC win the Old Firm Derby of Fan Happiness

Celtic FC was found to have the happiest fans in Scottish Premiership football by the Oddspedia study, with 58.4% of fan selfies expressing 'happy' sentiments, with Hearts (49.7%) and Hibernian (49.6%) second and third for cheeriest fans.

Given Celtic's recent track record, it's easy to understand why The Bhoys are smiling.

Celtic has won nine of the last ten Scottish Premiership titles, five of the previous ten Scottish Cups, and seven of the last ten Scottish League Cups. Their dominance in Scottish football is only rivalled by Old Firm enemies, Rangers. However, Rangers' fans are a less happy bunch…

Scottish Premiership: Rangers fans the angriest in Scottish top-flight football

Rangers and its fans have had a tumultuous few years after a financial meltdown during the 2011-12 season, which saw the club's assets liquidated and the team forced to start afresh in the Scottish fourth tier. They then gained promotion three times in four seasons to return to the Scottish Premiership for the 2016-17 season. Since their return, they've yet to fully return to their dominance of the 1990s and 2000s, which saw The Gers take 13 titles out of 20.

Given the challenges they've faced since that 2011-12 season, it's easy to see why Rangers fans may be angrier (5.6%) than most teams in the Scottish Premiership.

Scottish Premiership: Livingston, St Johnstone and Dundee the three saddest teams

The Oddspedia study classified a disappointing 12.3% of selfies taken at Livingston's home ground as 'sad'. However, the Scottish Premiership table makes it easy to see why.

Livingston currently sits last in the league, nine points from safety, and it's only a matter of time before they are relegated to the Championship. Another team in the top three saddest Scottish teams in our study, St Johnstone, are just two spots above them in the league standings.

Dundee rounds off the top three and sits 6th in the table, making it a puzzler what their fans are so unhappy about they're still in playoff contention.
See the complete data here:

Football Club Happy Sad Angry Confused
Aberdeen 46.1% 8.6% 2.7% 1%
Celtic 58.4% 4.9% 2.7% 1.3%
Dundee 37.8% 9% 4.1% 1.8%
Heart of Midlothian 49.7% 5.9% 2.9% 1.3%
Hibernian 49.6% 6.2% 2.9% 1.3%
Kilmarnock 42.8% 8.9% 4.8% 1.5%
Livingston 40.6% 12.3% 2.5% 1.4%
Motherwell 41.5% 7.2% 5.2% 1.8%
Rangers 43.3% 7.9% 5.6% 1.8%
Ross County 39.8% 6.6% 5.9% 3.6%
St Mirren 41% 8.6% 5% 2.2%
St. Johnstone 38.4% 9.4% 4.4% 1.6%

Methodology

Oddspedia researchers made a list of Instagram location pages for each English Premier League and Scottish Premiership club and collected the latest 500 fan selfies from these pages.

The images were analysed using Amazon Rekognition API. Amazon Rekognition API is a facial emotion recognition tool that scans faces and calculates various metrics regarding facial expressions—sad, angry, confused, disgusted, surprised, calm, and fearful. However, we mainly focused on the 'happiness' metric, i.e., how likely a face is to express happiness.

Using this data, we ranked the proportion of happy fan faces in Instagram photos tagged at each football club.

The data was collected in March – April 2023.

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