Championship · Saturday, 24 October 2026 · 15:00. Our rating makes this 54% to go over 2.5 goals, so our lean is over. The Championship average is 53%.
Open this match in the app →| Market | Yes | No | Our call |
|---|---|---|---|
| Over 2.5 goals | 54% | 46% | Over |
| Over 3.5 goals | 31% | 69% | no pick |
| Both teams to score | 58% | 42% | Yes |
The result model puts Stoke City at 44%, the draw at 25% and Bristol City at 31%, from expected goals of 1.67 and 1.36.
The league sets the starting point. Championship has produced over 2.5 goals in 53% of its matches, and that is where a team with no record of its own would sit.
Each side's own record. Stoke City have 8 in 11 this season (4 of 5 at home), Bristol City 5 in 11 (4 of 5 away). Those records are pulled toward the league rate with the weight of about 24 matches — enough that two or three unusual games cannot swing a rating — giving 59% and 51%.
Last season still counts, briefly. With 11 and 11 games played this season, last season's rates are still blended in and fade out entirely by game 40 — the point at which our testing showed they stop adding accuracy. A single season is part luck, so each club's record is first pulled toward the league average by 34 games' weight. That moves the two figures to 51% and 49%.
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 51%.
Head to head. These sides have met 5 times in three years, producing over 2.5 goals in 60%. That nudges the number 5% of the way toward the head-to-head pattern — deliberately small, because fixtures change more than reputations do — landing on 51%.
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 58%, from expected goals of 1.67 for Stoke City and 1.36 for Bristol City. Folding in 30% of that view gives 53%.
Calibration. Tested against 97,729 past matches, our ratings below 55% have run consistently too pessimistic — a figure in the high 30s, for instance, has come in about four points higher. So ratings in that range are lifted part-way back, giving 54%.
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.
| Team | Games | O2.5 | O3.5 | BTTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stoke City | 11 | 73% | 36% | 73% |
| Bristol City | 11 | 45% | 27% | 55% |
More: Stoke City season stats · Bristol City season stats · Championship table and form. Ratings are calibrated probabilities, not tips — a 60% call is expected to miss two times in five.