Match Predictor

The Match Predictor turns two teams' expected-goals form into match probabilities using a Dixon-Coles model, a Poisson goals model corrected for its under-prediction of low-scoring draws. It returns probabilities and fair decimal odds for the 1X2 market, the most likely correct scores and the over and under lines.

What goes in

For each team you enter season figures: xG for and against per match, goals conceded and matches played, and optionally xG over the last six matches, penalties received and conceded, open-play and set-piece xG, and shots for and against.

How the numbers are calculated

Penalty xG is stripped out at 0.76 per penalty and set-piece xG is discounted. Season and last-six figures are blended into an attack and a defence strength for each team. Expected goals for each side are attack strength times the opponent's defence strength times the league's average goals per team, adjusted by the league's home advantage ratio. Those two figures feed a Dixon-Coles adjusted Poisson grid of every scoreline, with the draw inflated slightly and the grid renormalised. The 1X2, correct-score and totals probabilities are sums over that grid, and fair odds are 1 divided by the probability, with no margin.

Where the league constants come from

Average goals per team and the home advantage ratio are recomputed every Monday from finished matches in the current season and the last three completed seasons, weighted towards the most recent. For the Premier League the current constants are 1.45 goals per team per match and a home advantage ratio of 1.18, from 810 matches (computed 2026-09-28).

Treat its fair odds as a baseline to set against the Pinnacle price.