Toulouse vs Troyes
Our model puts a Toulouse win at 73.1% in this Ligue 1 fixture — the clearest call on this fixture. Expected goals run 2.33 to 0.7.
What this probability has been worth
A number is worth what it has been worth. Across 2,324 predictions published before kick-off and scored against the result afterwards, the calls we priced between 65% and 75% came in 70.4% of the time — 223 fixtures in that band. The model claimed 69.5%, so the two are within 0.9 points of each other. In this range the stated probability has meant roughly what it says.
Where we disagree with the market
Bookmakers price Toulouse at 1.54, which implies about 64.9%. Our model has it at 73.1% — 8.2 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
Toulouse carry a rating of 1658 against 1522 for Troyes, a gap of 136 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, Toulouse's attack should find room against Troyes's defence, by 152 points. That is the mechanism behind the expected-goals line rather than a separate opinion about it.
Finding the target
Troyes struggles to hit the target: 26.7% of their shots are on goal over their last matches. The average across the sides we have figures for is 33.9%. Accuracy is not the same as scoring — it says how much of a side's shooting is worth a goalkeeper's attention, which is the part that does not swing as wildly from week to week as goals do.
Early or late
75% of Toulouse's goals have come after the break, against 56.2% for the sides we measure, over 20 goals. A side that scores this late is usually one that grows into matches or finishes them stronger than it starts — and one whose half-time score says less than usual about the result.
Behind the defence
58.3% of the shots on target Troyes 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.