Championship · England · Regular Season - 17

Middlesbrough–Coventry

2–4

HT 1–2

Kick-off: Tuesday, 25 November 2025 at 19:45
Status: Match Finished
Venue: Riverside Stadium, Middlesbrough

What the model said, and what happened

Too close to call — we gave this result 37%

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

10'CoventryE. Simms (assist: V. Torp)
14'CoventryL. Kitching (assist: M. Grimes)
32'MiddlesbroughM. Whittaker (assist: A. Jones)
49'MiddlesbroughB. Thomas (own goal)
85'CoventryL. Kitching
86'CoventryE. Simms (assist: J. Dasilva)

Match statistics

Match statistics
Middlesbrough		Coventry
11	Shots	20
2	Shots on target	8
5	Shots inside the box	16
4	Goalkeeper saves	1
8	Corners	3
6	Offsides	1
60%	Possession	40%
530	Passes	367
473	Accurate passes

What we expected, and what happened

Expected goals before kick-off: Middlesbrough 1.28 · Coventry 1.35. On the pitch: 2-4.
Shots Middlesbrough 11 · Coventry 20; on target 2 and 8.
Middlesbrough kept the ball more (60%).

Referee

Matt Donohue, England→

4.80

yellows per match

0.00

reds per match

matches of data

5 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 37.3%: “Coventry to win”. Second comes “Middlesbrough to win” at 34.7%.
Behind that distribution are the expected goals: 1.32 for Middlesbrough, 1.37 for Coventry.
The highest double chance value is 72.0% (12 — any result other than a draw).
These values were computed from 1,847 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.

Middlesbrough to win34.7%

Draw28.0%

Coventry to win37.3%

When the model has said 35–40% in the past, 1,562 of 4,187 predictions were correct (37.3%). Accuracy record →

12	Fouls	16

0	Yellow cards	0

0	Red cards	0

First half

Actual: 1–2

Middlesbrough lead at half-time25.9%

Level at half-time42.7%

Coventry lead at half-time31.4%

First-half double chance

1X — Middlesbrough ahead or level68.6%

12 — not level at half-time57.3%

X2 — level or Coventry ahead74.1%

These values are not a fraction of the full-match prediction; they come from a separate model trained on the first-half scores of 1847 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

Middlesbrough: at least 8Actual: 12
Coventry: at least 11Actual: 16

Corners

Middlesbrough: at least 5Actual: 8
Coventry: at least 4Actual: 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 Middlesbrough score1.28

Attack: Middlesbrough score close to the league average.

Opponent's defence: Coventry's defence is close to the league average (0.93×), so it doesn't move the expectation much.

Result: These two effects give an expectation of 1.28 goals (including home advantage).

How many goals Coventry score1.35

Attack: Coventry score above the league average (42% more).

Opponent's defence: Middlesbrough's defence is close to the league average (0.87×), so it doesn't move the expectation much.

Result: These two effects give an expectation of 1.35 goals (including the away penalty).

Most likely scorelines

1–114.1%1–29.2%2–18.8%

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.