Premier League · England · Regular Season - 1

Manchester City–Bournemouth

2–1

HT 0–1

Kick-off: Sunday, 23 August 2026 at 13:00
Status: Match Finished
Venue: Etihad Stadium, Manchester

What the model said, and what happened

Prediction correct

This verdict goes into the public record unchanged; we do not filter out the ones we get wrong. The model's track record

Goals and red cards

26'BournemouthM. Tavernier (assist: Evanilson)
84'Manchester CityM. Guéhi (assist: R. Cherki)
90+1'Manchester CityJ. Gvardiol (assist: R. Cherki)

Match statistics

Match statistics
Manchester City		Bournemouth
13	Shots	5
6	Shots on target	4
11	Shots inside the box	4
3	Goalkeeper saves	4
8	Corners	3
2	Offsides	1
66%	Possession	34%
633	Passes	328
563	Accurate passes

What we expected, and what happened

Expected goals before kick-off: Manchester City 2.02 · Bournemouth 1.04. On the pitch: 2-1.
Shots Manchester City 13 · Bournemouth 5; on target 6 and 4.
Manchester City kept the ball more (66%).

Unavailable players

Manchester City

J. Dokuout · Calf Injury
Savinhoout · Transfer negotiations

Bournemouth

A. Adliout · injury
E. J. Kroupiout · Foot Injury
J. Araujoout · Thigh Injury
J. Solerout · Lacking Match Fitness
R. Christieout · red-card suspension
V. Milosavljevicout · injury

Provider data — may change until the line-ups are announced. Last updated: Thursday, 17 September 2026 at 06:11.

Referee

Jarred Gillett, Australia→

There's no card data for this referee from before this match yet. We don't invent an average; it will appear here once the data exists.

Model prediction

Why this prediction?

The model puts the most likely outcome at 65.5%: “Manchester City to win”. Second comes “a draw” at 20.0%.
Behind that distribution are the expected goals: 2.28 for Manchester City, 1.05 for Bournemouth.
The highest double chance value is 85.4% (1X — Manchester City win or draw).
These values were computed from 1,526 past matches.

This is a prediction, not a guarantee; a probability is not a certainty.

These sentences are built by a fixed template; every number in them comes straight from the model's computation, none invented while the text was written.

Manchester City to win65.5%

Draw20.0%

Bournemouth to win14.6%

When the model has said 65–70% in the past, 675 of 977 predictions were correct (69.1%). Accuracy record →

11	Fouls	11

1	Yellow cards	2

0	Red cards	0

First half

Actual: 0–1

Manchester City lead at half-time57.2%

Level at half-time35.2%

Bournemouth lead at half-time7.6%

First-half double chance

1X — Manchester City ahead or level92.4%

12 — not level at half-time64.8%

X2 — level or Bournemouth ahead42.8%

These values are not a fraction of the full-match prediction; they come from a separate model trained on the first-half scores of 1526 matches. Its edge over the base rate is markedly smaller than the full-match model's — the measured figure is on the accuracy record. Read them more cautiously. First-half goal markets are not published because they failed to beat the base rate.

Expected fouls and corners

Fouls

Manchester City: at least 8Actual: 11
Bournemouth: at least 11Actual: 11

Corners

Manchester City: at least 6Actual: 8
Bournemouth: at least 3Actual: 3

These figures are set to hold in at least 60% of matches; in the rest the count comes in below them. No upper bound is stated — we make no "at most" claim. Yellow cards were measured and are not published: there our model did not beat the historical average.

What these probabilities rest on

Expected goals comes out of a team's attack weighed against its opponent's defence. A strong attack is damped when it meets a strong defence — which is why comparing the ratings on their own is misleading.

How many goals Manchester City score2.02

Attack: Manchester City score above the league average (35% more).

Opponent's defence: Bournemouth's defence is close to the league average (1.00×), so it doesn't move the expectation much.

Result: These two effects give an expectation of 2.02 goals (including home advantage).

How many goals Bournemouth score1.04

Attack: Bournemouth score above the league average (15% more).

Opponent's defence: Manchester City concede 20% fewer than the league average, which pulls the expectation down.

Result: These two effects give an expectation of 1.04 goals (including the away penalty).

Most likely scorelines

2–110.8%1–19.5%2–09.5%

A single scoreline is always less likely than an outcome: “home win” is the sum of 1-0, 2-0, 2-1 and dozens more. So the most likely single score can be a draw while the most likely outcome is a home win; the two do not contradict each other.

Week 1 of the season. This prediction was computed from previous seasons. Summer transfers, budget changes and squad rebuilds aren't in the ratings yet — the model can only see that a team has been rebuilt once new results come in.

We measured this and we're not hiding it: in the opening week of past seasons the model came in 3.3 points below the accuracy it claimed (n=220) — for the rest of the season it beats its own claim. The tendency points this way, though it is not proof on its own: in the opening week it slightly over-calls home wins (said 42.7%, got 39.5%) and slightly under-calls draws (said 26.1%, got 28.2%).

This sample is small and not statistically established, which is why we do not correct the model for it. The correction we tried (pulling probabilities toward the league average) didn't win on holdout, so it wasn't added. Read opening-week predictions with a little more caution.