West Ham United vs Queens Park Rangers
Our model puts a West Ham United win at 79.2% in this Championship fixture — the clearest call on this fixture. Expected goals run 2.73 to 0.67.
What this probability has been worth
A number is worth what it has been worth. Across 1,656 predictions published before kick-off and scored against the result afterwards, the calls we priced between 75% and 85% came in 84.9% of the time — 53 fixtures in that band. That is 5.9 points above what the model claimed — it has been too cautious in this range, which is the more comfortable error and still an error.
Where we disagree with the market
Bookmakers price West Ham United at 1.45, which implies about 69%. Our model has it at 79.2% — 10.2 points higher. That is a wide gap, and it is worth being plain about what it means: it is not a claim that the price is wrong and we are right. It means two methods that usually agree have landed far apart on this one, and only the result will say which of them read it better.
The ratings gap
West Ham United carry a rating of 1704 against 1483 for Queens Park Rangers, a gap of 221 points. On our scale that is the difference between a side that controls most of its fixtures and one that has to earn each of them. It is also the single largest input into the probabilities above.
Attack against defence
The single rating hides where the mismatch actually sits. Splitting it, West Ham United's attack should find room against Queens Park Rangers's defence, by 224 points. That is the mechanism behind the expected-goals line rather than a separate opinion about it.
A high-scoring home side
One model here does nothing but estimate how likely the home side is to score four goals or more, and on this fixture it reads 73.7%. Across our settled fixtures that happens about 8% of the time, so this is well above ordinary. It says nothing about who wins — a side can score four and still be caught — but a match where one team is expected to run up a total is one where the scoreline is much harder to call than the result.