Championship · England · Regular Season - 18

Sheffield Wednesday–Preston

2–3

HT 2–1

Kick-off: Saturday, 29 November 2025 at 15:00
Status: Match Finished
Venue: Hillsborough, Sheffield

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

3'Sheffield WednesdayC. McNeill (assist: H. Amass)
10'PrestonB. Whiteman (assist: J. Thompson)
14'Sheffield WednesdayC. McNeill (assist: L. Palmer)
57'PrestonL. Dobbin (assist: J. Storey)
76'PrestonM. Frokjaer-Jensen (assist: L. Dobbin)

Match statistics

Match statistics
Sheffield Wednesday		Preston
12	Shots	7
5	Shots on target	5
10	Shots inside the box	3
2	Goalkeeper saves	3
3	Corners	3
3	Offsides	1
57%	Possession	43%
501	Passes	375
430	Accurate passes

What we expected, and what happened

Expected goals before kick-off: Sheffield Wednesday 1.27 · Preston 1.31. On the pitch: 2-3.
Shots Sheffield Wednesday 12 · Preston 7; on target 5 and 5.
Sheffield Wednesday kept the ball more (57%).

Referee

Oliver Langford, England→

5.00

yellows per match

0.00

reds per match

matches of data

3 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 43.9%: “Preston to win”. Second comes “Sheffield Wednesday to win” at 28.2%.
Behind that distribution are the expected goals: 1.14 for Sheffield Wednesday, 1.47 for Preston.
The highest double chance value is 72.1% (12 — any result other than a draw).
These values were computed from 1,863 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.

Sheffield Wednesday to win28.2%

Draw27.9%

Preston to win43.9%

When the model has said 40–45% in the past, 1,778 of 3,998 predictions were correct (44.5%). Accuracy record →

10	Fouls	12

1	Yellow cards	1

0	Red cards	0

First half

Actual: 2–1

Sheffield Wednesday lead at half-time19.6%

Level at half-time43.8%

Preston lead at half-time36.7%

First-half double chance

1X — Sheffield Wednesday ahead or level63.3%

12 — not level at half-time56.2%

X2 — level or Preston ahead80.4%

These values are not a fraction of the full-match prediction; they come from a separate model trained on the first-half scores of 1863 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

Sheffield Wednesday: at least 10Actual: 10
Preston: at least 10Actual: 12

Corners

Sheffield Wednesday: at least 6Actual: 3
Preston: 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 Sheffield Wednesday score1.27

Attack: Sheffield Wednesday score close to the league average.

Opponent's defence: Preston'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 1.27 goals (including home advantage).

How many goals Preston score1.31

Attack: Preston score close to the league average.

Opponent's defence: Sheffield Wednesday concede 25% more than the league average, which pushes the expectation up.

Result: These two effects give an expectation of 1.31 goals (including the away penalty).

Most likely scorelines

1–114.2%1–29.9%0–19.9%

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.