Villarreal vs Elche
Our model puts a Villarreal win at 60.3% in this La Liga fixture — the clearest call on this fixture. Expected goals run 1.91 to 0.91.
What this probability has been worth
A number is worth what it has been worth. Across 1,941 predictions published before kick-off and scored against the result afterwards, the calls we priced between 55% and 65% came in 50.7% of the time — 355 fixtures in that band. That is 8.8 points below what the model claimed, so read this figure as optimistic: in this range it has been saying more than it could support. We publish the gap rather than quietly shading the number, because a record that only shows its good bands is not a record.
Where we disagree with the market
Bookmakers price Villarreal at 1.44, which implies about 69.4%. Our model has it at 60.3% — 9.1 points lower. 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
Villarreal carry a rating of 1719 against 1627 for Elche, a gap of 92 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, Villarreal's attack should find room against Elche's defence, by 172 points. That is the mechanism behind the expected-goals line rather than a separate opinion about it.
A disciplinary record worth knowing
Elche collect 3.2 cards a match, on 14.8 fouls a match, against an average of 2.2. Cards are the one thing here that can change a match rather than describe it: a sending-off rewrites every number on this page.
Early or late
41.7% of Villarreal's goals have come after the break, against 56.2% for the sides we measure, over 24 goals. A side that does its scoring early has more to protect than most, and a lead at the break is likelier to be the story of the match than the first act of it.
Behind the defence
57.1% of the shots on target Elche face do not end up in the net, against 67.3% for the sides we measure. That is low enough to matter, and it is the kind of number that flatters or punishes a side's record without saying much about how it plays.
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 60.8%. 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.