Alavés vs Málaga
Our model puts an Alavés win at 61.6% in this La Liga fixture — the clearest call on this fixture. Expected goals run 1.81 to 0.78.
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 Málaga at 4.3, which implies about 23.3%. Our model has it at 15.7% — 7.6 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
Alaves carry a rating of 1670 against 1547 for Malaga, a gap of 123 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.