Championship · England · Regular Season - 22

Bristol City–Middlesbrough

2–0

HT 1–0

Kick-off: Saturday, 20 December 2025 at 15:00
Status: Match Finished
Venue: Ashton Gate Stadium, Bristol

What the model said, and what happened

Too close to call — we gave this result 34%double chance: 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'Bristol CityE. Riis
62'Bristol CityR. Atkinson (assist: S. Twine)

Match statistics

Match statistics
Bristol City		Middlesbrough
13	Shots	28
8	Shots on target	3
6	Shots inside the box	19
2	Goalkeeper saves	6
3	Corners	13
1	Offsides	0
29%	Possession	71%
243	Passes	594
174	Accurate passes

What we expected, and what happened

Expected goals before kick-off: Bristol City 1.32 · Middlesbrough 1.20. On the pitch: 2-0.
Shots Bristol City 13 · Middlesbrough 28; on target 8 and 3.
Middlesbrough kept the ball more (71%).

Referee

Anthony Backhouse, England→

4.33

yellows per match

0.00

reds per match

matches of data

9 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 38.2%: “Middlesbrough to win”. Second comes “Bristol City to win” at 34.5%.
Behind that distribution are the expected goals: 1.36 for Bristol City, 1.44 for Middlesbrough.
The highest double chance value is 72.7% (12 — any result other than a draw).
These values were computed from 1,910 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.

Bristol City to win34.5%

Draw27.3%

Middlesbrough to win38.2%

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

6	Fouls	5

2	Yellow cards	3

0	Red cards	0

First half

Actual: 1–0

Bristol City lead at half-time29.6%

Level at half-time43.3%

Middlesbrough lead at half-time27.1%

First-half double chance

1X — Bristol City ahead or level72.9%

12 — not level at half-time56.7%

X2 — level or Middlesbrough ahead70.4%

These values are not a fraction of the full-match prediction; they come from a separate model trained on the first-half scores of 1910 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

Bristol City: at least 10Actual: 6
Middlesbrough: at least 9Actual: 5

Corners

Bristol City: at least 5Actual: 3
Middlesbrough: at least 3Actual: 13

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 Bristol City score1.32

Attack: Bristol City score close to the league average.

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 1.32 goals (including home advantage).

How many goals Middlesbrough score1.20

Attack: Middlesbrough score close to the league average.

Opponent's defence: Bristol City's defence is close to the league average (0.99×), so it doesn't move the expectation much.

Result: These two effects give an expectation of 1.20 goals (including the away penalty).

Most likely scorelines

1–113.7%1–29.4%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.