Championship · England · Regular Season - 26

Bristol City–Preston

0–2

HT 0–1

Kick-off: Sunday, 4 January 2026 at 15:00
Status: Match Finished
Venue: Ashton Gate Stadium, Bristol

What the model said, and what happened

Incorrect — we gave this result 21%

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

8'PrestonL. Dobbin (assist: J. Thompson)
70'PrestonA. Devine

Match statistics

Match statistics
Bristol City		Preston
11	Shots	12
2	Shots on target	3
6	Shots inside the box	7
1	Goalkeeper saves	2
6	Corners	3
5	Offsides	4
64%	Possession	36%
609	Passes	352
519	Accurate passes

What we expected, and what happened

Expected goals before kick-off: Bristol City 1.56 · Preston 1.00. On the pitch: 0-2.
Shots Bristol City 11 · Preston 12; on target 2 and 3.
Bristol City kept the ball more (64%).

Referee

Paul Tierney, England→

3.00

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 51.8%: “Bristol City to win”. Second comes “a draw” at 26.8%.
Behind that distribution are the expected goals: 1.60 for Bristol City, 0.97 for Preston.
The highest double chance value is 78.5% (1X — Bristol City win or draw).
These values were computed from 1,956 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 win51.8%

Draw26.8%

Preston to win21.5%

When the model has said 50–55% in the past, 1,337 of 2,542 predictions were correct (52.6%). Accuracy record →

11	Fouls	14

0	Yellow cards	2

0	Red cards	0

First half

Actual: 0–1

Bristol City lead at half-time36.6%

Level at half-time43.8%

Preston lead at half-time19.6%

First-half double chance

1X — Bristol City ahead or level80.4%

12 — not level at half-time56.2%

X2 — level or Preston ahead63.4%

These values are not a fraction of the full-match prediction; they come from a separate model trained on the first-half scores of 1956 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 8Actual: 11
Preston: at least 11Actual: 14

Corners

Bristol City: at least 5Actual: 6
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 Bristol City score1.56

Attack: Bristol City score close to the league average.

Opponent's defence: Preston's defence is close to the league average (1.01×), so it doesn't move the expectation much.

Result: These two effects give an expectation of 1.56 goals (including home advantage).

How many goals Preston score1.00

Attack: Preston 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 1.00 goals (including the away penalty).

Most likely scorelines

1–113.6%1–011.5%2–110.5%

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.