PAU v Annecy — prediction, stats and goal analysis

Ligue 2 · Saturday, 8 August 2026. Final score 0–1 (half-time 0–1). Before kick-off we rated it 54% over 2.5 goals — the match finished with 1, so that call missed. That rating was frozen into a version-controlled ledger before the game and has not been touched since.

Open this match in the app →

Our ratings for this match

MarketYesNoOur call
Over 2.5 goals48%52%Under
Over 3.5 goals24%76%no pick
Both teams to score21%79%No

The result model puts PAU at 31%, the draw at 24% and Annecy at 44%, from expected goals of 1.33 and 1.62.

How we got this number

The league sets the starting point. Ligue 2 has produced over 2.5 goals in 0% of its matches, and that is where a team with no record of its own would sit.

Each side's own record. PAU have 0 in 0 this season, Annecy 0 in 0. Those records are pulled toward the league rate with the weight of about 32 matches — enough that two or three unusual games cannot swing a rating — giving 0% and 0%.

Last season still counts, briefly. With 0 and 0 games played this season, last season's rates are still blended in and fade out entirely by game 14 — the point at which our testing showed they stop adding accuracy. That moves the two figures to 68% and 56%.

The mix. Weighted 40% home side, 40% away side and 20% league — the split that beat every alternative across 30,582 matches of testing — that gives 49%.

Head to head. These sides have met 6 times in three years, producing over 2.5 goals in 33%. That nudges the number 10% of the way toward the head-to-head pattern — deliberately small, because fixtures change more than reputations do — landing on 48%.

Goal expectation. Separately a Poisson model built from attack and defence strength — using real expected-goals data where the league has it — puts this match at 56%, from expected goals of 1.33 for PAU and 1.62 for Annecy. Folding in 30% of that view gives 50%.

Season opener. One of these sides has not played a league game yet. Openers run about 2.5 points under their league's norm, measured across 2,727 of them, so the rating is docked to 48%.

This breakdown is generated from the same inputs the rating uses, so it cannot describe a calculation we did not perform. The full model is set out in the methodology.

Season form

TeamGamesO2.5O3.5BTTS
PAU0
Annecy0

Head to head

24 Apr 26Annecy 5–1 PAUO2.5
9 Aug 25PAU 2–0 AnnecyU2.5
28 Mar 25PAU 1–0 AnnecyU2.5
1 Nov 24Annecy 2–0 PAUU2.5
27 Jan 24Annecy 0–0 PAUU2.5
23 Sept 23PAU 0–3 AnnecyO2.5

Things worth knowing

More: PAU season stats · Annecy season stats · Ligue 2 table and form. Ratings are calibrated probabilities, not tips — a 60% call is expected to miss two times in five.