Boxing Day Premier League and Championship 2021
Premier League
For Boxing Day, currently 3 games are not taking place due to the number of Covid cases with some of the teams involved.
Of those that are taking place, our model continues to stand up to bookmakers mean odds, at least in terms of overall outcomes, even though there are some percentage differences (see Premier League table below, in this section and the Championship at the end of the page).
Man City v Leicester has an almost 10% difference in the confidence levels for a Man City win (73% our model, 82.5% for bookmakers). Man City have had injuries but have so many good players, in particular the midfield able to rotate almost interchangeably, whereas Leicester have been a bit patchy form wise this season. We have this as 2-0 for Man City but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 3 or 4-1 or more.
Tottenham v Palace is about to kick off in less than half an hour and was the game most likely to be cancelled, with Viera, the Palace manager not able to attend. We have this as a 1-1 draw, as the most likely score but that is largely because Palace just sneak into expected goals of just over one. We have Tottenham at 55% likely to win, with bookmakers only 2.4% higher. A 1-1 draw is 11.1% likely but a 1-0 home win is very close at 10.9% as the most likely exact scores. Personally, I think Tottenham will win.
Championship
In the Championship, only two games take place today with all the others cancelled for the reasons above. There are also two games tomorrow though. Middlesbrough v Forest is taking place today and we have that as a 1-1 draw. It looks close though with less than 10% between the likely winners in our model. Bookmakers mean odds are slightly more confident in Middlesbrough at 46.5% which reduces Forest to less than 25% as likely winners.
Tomorrow’s games also look like draws for Derby v West Brom (although bookmakers mean odds are quite a bit more confident of a West Brom win than our model at over 55% for a West Brom win (we have 42.6%). With QPR v Bournemouth, both our model and bookmakers have a 1-1 draw as most likely, although we favour QPR with bookmakers giving Bournemouth the edge.
