Championship, game week 5 — UK time
Your appraisal — and now the market.
Cardiff City is new to this division, so the rank comparison rests on less than a shared season. -0.36 points a game is the venue form gap, in Cardiff City's favour: Portsmouth takes 1.20 a game at home over the last two seasons, Cardiff City 1.56 away. Portsmouth scores heaviest in the 76-90+ spell and concedes heaviest in 46-60; Cardiff City scores heaviest in 76-90+ and concedes heaviest in 16-30. Averaging the two sides' own rates: over 2.5 goals in 51% of their games, both teams scoring in 57%, and a two-goal lead for one side or the other in 40%. On the record there is no strong lean either way on goals.
If the pattern holds -- and a pattern is a shape, not a promise: Cardiff City lands the first blow more often (28 of 50 to 23 of 50); when a lead builds towards 2UP it is more often Cardiff City's -- two goals clear in 16 of 50, against 7 of 50; a one-goal lead has not been safe in Portsmouth's hands -- ahead without winning in 9 of 50; Portsmouth finds its goals latest of all -- 14 of its 54 after the 75th; Cardiff City finds its goals latest of all -- 23 of its 96 after the 75th.
That read is built from the four steps, with no price in your ear -- the steps hold the evidence if you want the post-mortem. Now the market gets its say. Where it agrees with you it got there first; where it does not, your read and the crowd's disagree -- that is the conversation this tool exists to set up, and no measured edge backs either side of it.
The tissue is a plain goals model: Portsmouth 1.01 goals expected, Cardiff City 1.53, from two seasons of scoring rates (25 home matches and 25 away in the bank), shrunk toward the division average. It is calibrated against nothing and claims no edge -- it exists to make your view concrete before the market speaks. Note: Cardiff City's figures include last season in the League One, where goals came against different company.
Our tissue: Portsmouth 4.01 (25%), the draw 3.90 (26%), Cardiff City 2.02 (49%). The market's averages: 2.35, 3.50 and 2.51. The widest gap is on Portsmouth: the market is shorter (2.35) than our 4.01 -- it rates that outcome more than we do.
Our tissue: over 2.5 2.14 (47%), under 2.5 1.88 (53%). The market's averages: over 2.5 1.73, under 2.5 2.10. The market is shorter than our number on over 2.5.
Our tissue: yes 2.01 (50%), no 1.99 (50%). The market's averages: yes 1.53, no 2.34. The market is shorter than our number on yes.
For the 2UP offer the fact that matters is a two-goal lead for one team or the other at ANY point, not the final margin. In Portsmouth's own 25 home matches read, one appeared in 9 (36%). In Cardiff City's own 25 away matches read, 11 (44%). Averaging the two sides' rates -- never pooling their matches -- that is 40% of games. No tissue is offered for this -- the played-match rates above are the honest read.
The market figures are the AVERAGE pre-match odds our feed records across books, not a best price -- a shaded average, so small gaps mean nothing.
Built 06:39 from matches completed before kick-off. The tissue is a model, not a measurement; the market figures are recorded averages, not offers. Nothing here is a tip or a selection.