Championship · England · Regular Season - 32

West Brom–Cardiff

2–0

HT 1–0

Kick-off: Tuesday, 13 February 2024 at 20:00
Status: Match Finished
Venue: The Hawthorns, West Bromwich

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

1'West BromM. Johnston (assist: T. Fellows)
80'West BromA. Weimann (assist: J. Wallace)

Match statistics

Match statistics
West Brom		Cardiff
11	Shots	11
3	Shots on target	1
8	Shots inside the box	6
1	Goalkeeper saves	0
4	Corners	4
3	Offsides	2
62%	Possession	38%
640	Passes	386
567	Accurate passes

What we expected, and what happened

Expected goals before kick-off: West Brom 1.71 · Cardiff 0.80. On the pitch: 2-0.
Shots West Brom 11 · Cardiff 11; on target 3 and 1.
West Brom kept the ball more (62%).

Referee

R. Welch→

4.70

yellows per match

0.20

reds per match

matches of data

10 matches is a small sample — these averages are noisy and should not be read as a tendency.

Model prediction

Why this prediction?

The model puts the most likely outcome at 56.3%: “West Brom to win”. Second comes “a draw” at 26.8%.
Behind that distribution are the expected goals: 1.57 for West Brom, 0.77 for Cardiff.
The highest double chance value is 83.1% (1X — West Brom win or draw).
These values were computed from 924 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.

West Brom to win56.3%

Draw26.8%

Cardiff to win16.9%

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

Both teams to score

8	Fouls	11

1	Yellow cards	2

0	Red cards	0

First half

Actual: 1–0

West Brom lead at half-time37.9%

Level at half-time44.3%

Cardiff lead at half-time17.7%

First-half double chance

1X — West Brom ahead or level82.3%

12 — not level at half-time55.7%

X2 — level or Cardiff ahead62.1%

These values are not a fraction of the full-match prediction; they come from a separate model trained on the first-half scores of 924 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

West Brom: at least 8Actual: 8
Cardiff: at least 9Actual: 11

Corners

West Brom: at least 5Actual: 4
Cardiff: at least 3Actual: 4

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 West Brom score1.71

Attack: West Brom score close to the league average.

Opponent's defence: Cardiff's defence is close to the league average (1.08×), so it doesn't move the expectation much.

Result: These two effects give an expectation of 1.71 goals (including home advantage).

How many goals Cardiff score0.80

Attack: Cardiff score below the league average (23% fewer).

Opponent's defence: West Brom concede 18% fewer than the league average, which pulls the expectation down.

Result: These two effects give an expectation of 0.80 goals (including the away penalty).

Most likely scorelines

1–014.5%1–113.3%2–012.2%

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.