English Championship 15 1 2022

No Championship fixture tonight but plenty on Saturday and Sunday and with quite a few less Covid postponements than in previous weeks, at least as I type this.

Middlesbrough v Reading

I was curious to see what our scorecast would throw out, considering Reading lost 7-0 on Tuesday to Fulham.

Middlesbrough are 7th and have won 4 of their last 5 games so it really doesn’t look good for Reading. Our model is somewhat kinder to them than bookmakers odds (47.3% our model, 65.3% Bookmakers Mean Odds, see below, in terms of likely winner), however the most likely score is still a 1-1 draw, in part, because Reading usually score and for this match have just over 1 for expected goals.

Cardiff v Blackburn

Statistically speaking one team that caught my eye last season was Blackburn, who were the 5th highest scorers last season but only finished 15th in the league.

So far this year they are third  and are second only to Fulham in terms of goals. This is yet another 1-1 draw as the most likely score, where other than Fulham or Preston who are likely to win according to our model, ten other games are predicted to also draw 1-1. Our model slightly favours Blackburn by 3% but there is only 0.1% between the two teams with bookmakers.