Championship · England · Regular Season - 39

Watford–Leicester

0–0

HT 0–0

Kick-off: Saturday, 21 March 2026 at 15:00
Status: Match Finished
Venue: Vicarage Road, Watford

What the model said, and what happened

Ended level — we gave the draw 27%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

Match statistics

Match statistics
Watford		Leicester
6	Shots	15
2	Shots on target	5
3	Shots inside the box	11
5	Goalkeeper saves	2
7	Corners	4
1	Offsides	3
45%	Possession	55%
334	Passes	408
250	Accurate passes

What we expected, and what happened

Expected goals before kick-off: Watford 1.60 · Leicester 0.98. On the pitch: 0-0.
Shots Watford 6 · Leicester 15; on target 2 and 5.
Leicester kept the ball more (55%).

Referee

J. Smith→

4.12

yellows per match

0.18

reds per match

matches of data

Model prediction

Why this prediction?

The model puts the most likely outcome at 47.3%: “Watford to win”. Second comes “a draw” at 27.0%.
Behind that distribution are the expected goals: 1.57 for Watford, 1.12 for Leicester.
The highest double chance value is 74.3% (1X — Watford win or draw).
These values were computed from 2,115 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.

Watford to win47.3%

Draw27.0%

Leicester to win25.7%

When the model has said 45–50% in the past, 1,541 of 3,251 predictions were correct (47.4%). Accuracy record →

Both teams to score

13	Fouls	8

3	Yellow cards	4

0	Red cards	0

First half

Actual: 0–0

Watford lead at half-time28.0%

Level at half-time41.3%

Leicester lead at half-time30.7%

First-half double chance

1X — Watford ahead or level69.3%

12 — not level at half-time58.7%

X2 — level or Leicester ahead72.0%

These values are not a fraction of the full-match prediction; they come from a separate model trained on the first-half scores of 2115 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

Watford: at least 10Actual: 13
Leicester: at least 10Actual: 8

Corners

Watford: at least 5Actual: 7
Leicester: 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 Watford score1.60

Attack: Watford score close to the league average.

Opponent's defence: Leicester concede 16% more than the league average, which pushes the expectation up.

Result: These two effects give an expectation of 1.60 goals (including home advantage).

How many goals Leicester score0.98

Attack: Leicester score close to the league average.

Opponent's defence: Watford'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 0.98 goals (including the away penalty).

Most likely scorelines

1–113.7%2–110.3%1–09.8%

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.