This is an odd weekend in the English Football calendar as it is mainly taken up by the FA Cup 4th Round.

However, even at this point a number of teams have already been knocked out. I decided to combine the Championship and Premier League scorecasts onto one page today as there are only 4 matches in the Championship and 1 in the Premier League.

English Championship

The table below shows all the fixtures that were originally scheduled to take place this weekend.

Friday:

Of those taking place tonight’s game is Stoke v Watford. We have that as a 1-1 draw the most likely score (see Score Picks). The two teams have almost identical Expected Goals for this game and almost identical likely outcome scores (36.2% v 36.5% – bookmakers favour Watford at 39.7% and Stoke and only 29.5%).

Saturday:

On Saturday there is only one game taking place, QPR v Derby.

This also is likely to be a draw according to our model, which only slightly favours QPR over Derby (QPR at 38.9% to win and 32.1% Derby). Bookmaker odds are almost identical to ours at 38% (QPR) to 32% (Derby).

Sunday:

There are 2 games taking place on Sunday.

In the Preston North End v Reading game our model favours Preston at 41% to Reading’s 31.1%, with Preston on 1.27 on expected goals and Reading at 1.07.

The model gives a 1-1 as the most likely score (13.1% chance of occurring, with a 1-0 for Preston at 12.3%; Reading’s most likely win is at 10.3% – a 1-0 away win).

Reading however have won 3 of the last 4 games and are 5th in the table compared to Preston who are 10th.

Middlesbrough v Blackburn is the other game taking place on Sunday. This also has a 1-1 as the most likely result. Middlesbrough do have the highest Outcome score of the teams playing in the Championship this weekend though at 49.4% to win. However, bookmakers have it a fair bit lower at 38%.

 

Premier League

Only one game in the Premier League this weekend (there is a full-set of Premier League fixtures starting Tuesday, Covid permitting).

Aston Villa v Newcastle

This takes place tomorrow night and looks like a 1-0 victory for Aston Villa as the most likely score (a 1-0 home win is actually 12.3% for that exact score, in our model, with a Villa victory of some sort at 52.6% compared to bookmakers higher 64.5%. Villa are also on 1.61 expected goals to Newcastle’s 0.96.