English Championship 29-30 January 2021

Reading v Bournemouth

Starting with tonight’s 8pm game, our model predicts a 1-1 draw but also slightly favours Reading at 37.8% to Bournemouth’s 33.6%.

Bookmakers however favour Bournemouth at just over 42%.

Historically the two teams have been fairly close when matched up. Bournemouth have won 46 times to Reading’s 42, with 25 draws (info from 11v 11)

Brentford v Wycombe

The rest of the games are tomorrow but this game stands out mainly because Brenford are such overwhelming favourites.

Brentford have not lost in the league since October so although they are only 4th it is not that surprising.

They are showing at over 2 for expected goals and in our model at over 70% likely to win.

Interestingly, our model and bookmakers mean odds are exactly the same for Wycombe’s chances – at 11.4%.

Historically the teams have an even record with both teams winning 10 times, although Wycombe haven’t won since 2009 (info from 11v11)

Elsewhere in the league, some other interesting match ups are Nottingham Forest v Barnsley where the two teams are exactly equal on expected goals and also on the Outcome Probabilities in our model (both teams are at 37%) whereas bookmakers favour Forest at 39.2 and Barnsley at only 31.4%.

Our model is very close on who the likely winner will be in Blackburn v Luton, with 50.8% for a Blackburn win and bookmakers just 0.1% higher.

I think a lot of this is reflected by the fact the Championship has not just traditionally been very close but that it remains so. There are still only 4 matches out of 12 where the most likely score is not predicted at 1-1.

If you look at the ‘Draws’ section of the table below in the “1-1” section, all matches are showing at above 11% for a 1-1 as a likely outcome.

The Brentford match I’ve mentioned above is the exception, where this team has been very consistently getting wins, draws and is jointly the second-top scoring team in the division and against Wycombe who are bottom of the league.