Championship 22 January 2022

Nottingham Forest v Derby

It would be remiss of me to not cover the ‘Clough Derby’, not least because both teams are interesting this season and because one of our ‘Scorecasters’ is a Derby fan.

Forest are on the edge of the playoffs in 10th place and just 5 points away from 6th. Derby on the other hand, despite everything financially going against them, on the pitch have put together form that would see them climb the table if not for the points deductions. They are unbeaten in 5 games, having not lost since 4 December in the league.

Our model predicts a 1-1 draw as the most likely score but favours Forest at 50% likely winners. Bookmakers Mean Odds (in the table below on the right) actually give both teams slightly less chance of winning that our model but for Forest they have them at just below 48% as winners.

Reading v Huddersfield

One game where there is a difference in likely winners in the different models is Reading v Huddersfield. This is a bit of an odd one, odds wise as our model favours Reading despite their current dreadful league form at 44.2% with Huddersfield just below 30% as likely winners. This is partly home advantage, partly expected goals and partly historic results.

At the beginning of the season, Huddersfield beat Reading 4-0 but in the entire time they’ve played each other, Huddersfield have only won 17 times to Reading’s 26  according to 11v11 at least.

Bookmakers Mean Odds on the other hand bring Reading’s hopes back to earth by favouring Huddersfield at 39% compared to Reading’s 32. Our model has a 1-1 draw as the most likely score.