Premier League · England · Regular Season - 2

Crystal Palace–Manchester City

1–4

HT 0–1

Kick-off: Friday, 28 August 2026 at 19:00
Status: Match Finished
Venue: Selhurst Park, London

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

17'Manchester CityE. Haaland (assist: A. Semenyo)
54'Manchester CityR. Cherki (assist: P. Foden)
56'Crystal PalaceG. Donnarumma (own goal)
59'Manchester CityR. Cherki (assist: J. Gvardiol)
84'Manchester CityE. Haaland (assist: P. Foden)

Match statistics

Match statistics
Crystal Palace		Manchester City
9	Shots	18
1	Shots on target	9
6	Shots inside the box	12
4	Goalkeeper saves	1
2	Corners	6
3	Offsides	0
28%	Possession	72%
270	Passes	721
223	Accurate passes

What we expected, and what happened

Expected goals before kick-off: Crystal Palace 1.25 · Manchester City 1.61. On the pitch: 1-4.
Shots Crystal Palace 9 · Manchester City 18; on target 1 and 9.
Manchester City kept the ball more (72%).

Unavailable players

Crystal Palace

C. Riadout · Knee Injury
I. Sarrout · injury
J. Matetaout · Hamstring Injury

Manchester City

J. Dokuout · Calf Injury
M. Nunesout · injury
R. McAidoodoubtful · Shoulder Injury

Provider data — may change until the line-ups are announced. Last updated: Wednesday, 16 September 2026 at 15:11.

Referee

Andy Madley, England→

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 57.5%: “Manchester City to win”. Second comes “a draw” at 23.7%.
Behind that distribution are the expected goals: 1.04 for Crystal Palace, 1.90 for Manchester City.
The highest double chance value is 81.2% (X2 — draw or Manchester City win).
These values were computed from 1,530 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.

Crystal Palace to win18.8%

Draw23.7%

Manchester City to win57.5%

When the model has said 55–60% in the past, 1,158 of 1,982 predictions were correct (58.4%). Accuracy record →

7	Fouls	10

1	Yellow cards	2

0	Red cards	0

First half

Actual: 0–1

Crystal Palace lead at half-time13.3%

Level at half-time39.0%

Manchester City lead at half-time47.8%

First-half double chance

1X — Crystal Palace ahead or level52.2%

12 — not level at half-time61.0%

X2 — level or Manchester City ahead86.7%

These values are not a fraction of the full-match prediction; they come from a separate model trained on the first-half scores of 1530 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

Crystal Palace: at least 10Actual: 7
Manchester City: at least 8Actual: 10

Corners

Crystal Palace: at least 3Actual: 2
Manchester City: at least 5Actual: 6

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 Crystal Palace score1.25

Attack: Crystal Palace score close to the league average.

Opponent's defence: Manchester City concede 21% fewer than the league average, which pulls the expectation down.

Result: These two effects give an expectation of 1.25 goals (including home advantage).

How many goals Manchester City score1.61

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

Opponent's defence: Crystal Palace's defence is close to the league average (0.97×), so it doesn't move the expectation much.

Result: These two effects give an expectation of 1.61 goals (including the away penalty).

Most likely scorelines

1–111.8%1–211.0%0–29.7%

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 2 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: the bias is only pronounced in the opening week. In this week the model's overall accuracy does not separate from the rest of the season — that is, we found no measurable flaw. The one tendency across all opening weeks is that home wins are called slightly too often (said 43.0%, got 41.9%; n=583).

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.