Championship

Birmingham 4–0 Preston

Final score · Half-time 3–0 · All of yesterday's results

The sharp market makes Birmingham the most likely outcome at 62% — fair odds of 1.62. LeoVegas (SE) offers 1.67, a market gap of +3.4% above the fair price, which is where we flag value (Strong value). Confidence is High and model agreement is High. Recent form — Birmingham: WDWLD; Preston: LDLLW.

After the whistle

Goals and cards

  1. 34' Liam Millar · goal · assist Patrick Roberts · Birmingham
  2. 45+2' August Priske · goal · assist Alex Cochrane · Birmingham
  3. 45+4' August Priske · goal · assist Jay Stansfield · Birmingham
  4. 47' Stanley Mills · yellow card · Preston
  5. 50' Liam Millar · yellow card · Birmingham
  6. 56' Stanley Mills · red card · Preston
  7. 76' Demarai Gray · goal · assist Max Bird · Birmingham

Match stats

Match statsBirminghamPreston
Possession %7624
Expected goals (xG)2.280.52
Shots186
Shots on target51
Corners63
Yellow cards10
Red cards01
Fouls813
Offsides32
Goalkeeper saves13

What the market said before kick-off

  • Birmingham win 66% happened
  • Draw 20% did not happen
  • Preston win 14% did not happen
  • Over 2.5 goals 56% happened
  • Both teams score 52% did not happen

Pinnacle closing price with the margin removed, next to what happened. It is the market's view, not a tip: an outcome priced at 30% happens about 3 times in 10.

Referee: Sam Allison · Venue: St. Andrew's Stadium, Birmingham

Next matches

Line-ups, events and match stats: API-Football.

Starting line-ups

Birmingham 4-2-3-1

  1. 1 J. Beadle GK
  2. 26 B. Osayi-Samuel DF
  3. 5 P. Neumann DF
  4. 4 C. Klarer DF
  5. 20 A. Cochrane DF
  6. 24 T. Iwata MF
  7. 14 J. Solis MF
  8. 16 P. Roberts MF
  9. 28 J. Stansfield MF
  10. 17 L. Millar MF
  11. 9 A. Priske FW

Bench: R. Allsop, M. Bird, M. Ducksch, D. Fry, T. Gardner-Hickman, D. Gray, E. Laird, Carlos Vicente, L. Vázquez

Coach: C. Davies

Regular starters not in the XI

  • Carlos Vicente — on the bench (started 4 of the last 5)

Preston 4-2-3-1

  1. 1 D. Iversen GK
  2. 20 L. Gibbs DF
  3. 14 J. Storey DF
  4. 24 O. Offiah DF
  5. 16 A. Hughes DF
  6. 27 L. Leroy MF
  7. 15 J. Thompson MF
  8. 17 S. Mills MF
  9. 7 A. Devine MF
  10. 11 T. Small MF
  11. 10 C. Lang FW

Bench: J. Erabi, L. Gibson, G. Gryba, L. Lindsay, A. Moran, L. Nicholls, Pol Valentín, A. Vukčević, D. Burgzorg

Coach: G. Alexander

Regular starters not in the XI

  • H. Clarke — not in the squad (started 5 of the last 5)
  • A. Vukčević — on the bench (started 4 of the last 5)

Not in the XI does not mean injured: it can be rotation, a suspension or a knock. We only compare with the team's last 5 line-ups.

Pinnacle, margin removed (home / draw / away): 67 / 19 / 13% when the line-ups came out, 66 / 20 / 14% at kick-off. The price barely moved after the line-ups.

In the big leagues, line-up news is usually already in the price by the time it is official.

The most likely result is not the same as value: value is where a bookmaker pays more than the fair price, and the two can point to different outcomes.

Value opportunity before kick-off Strong value

1 Birmingham @ 1.67
Bookmaker LeoVegas (SE)
Price observed
Flag recorded @ 1.67 (LeoVegas (SE)) · recorded live, before kick-off
Market 1X2 (match result)
Availability and exact price varied by country and over time.
Fair price 1.62
LeoVegas (SE) 1.67
Confidence: High
Value-bet result Won · 1 +0.67u

Market discrepancy: before kick-off, Birmingham (1) was priced at 1.67 by a soft bookmaker, above the fair price of 1.62 — a +3.4% gap. An observation about the price, not an instruction to bet.

A single result where a bookmaker pays above the fair price — separate from the main prediction below.

Most likely result

1 Home win 62%
1X2
Sharp, recorded62%21%17%
Other estimates
Our model61%22%17%

Sharp, recorded = Pinnacle when we logged the match (it can be days old). Our model = our own estimate, which on average predicts worse than the market.

Fair odds of the pick (as recorded) 1.62
Sharp odds recorded for this prediction (Pinnacle) 1.56 / 4.18 / 5.26
Market Gap +3.4%
Confidence High
Model agreement High

Confidence reflects only the sharp probability of the selection: high from 50%, medium from 40%, low below. It says how likely the result is, not how big the price gap is. Model agreement shows how close our own model is to the sharp market on this selection — when it is Low, the market and our model disagree, so treat the flag with more caution.

Prediction result Won · 1

Value lifecycle Settled

Detected ·
1 Birmingham · soft 1.67 (LeoVegas (SE)) · fair 1.62 · edge +3.4%
Opening sharp
1.56
At close
1.51 · CLV +10.8%
Result
Won +0.67u 🔒 Recorded live before kick-off

“Detected” is the moment the flag was first shown on the site and written to our ledger (recorded live since 26 September 2026). For earlier matches the flag was reconstructed afterwards from the prices we had stored, and the time shown is when the rule would have fired: a backtest, not a live record. When the gap closes, we say so instead of pretending the value is still there.

Match context

The last 2 head-to-head meetings we tracked split 2–0–0 (Birmingham wins – draws – Preston wins).

Birmingham scored 1.6 and conceded 1.4 across their last 5 matches in our results database; Preston scored 1 and conceded 1.4 in 5.

Since opening around 1.56, the sharp market price on Birmingham has shortened to 1.51 — the market has moved towards this outcome.

These figures come from our own tracked results and odds snapshots for this fixture — not from a generic stats feed.

Why this price?

Birmingham
W D W L D
avg 1.6 scored · 1.4 conceded (last 5)
Preston
L D L L W
avg 1 scored · 1.4 conceded (last 5)
Recent head-to-head
22 Apr 2026 Birmingham 2–1 Preston
21 Oct 2025 Preston 0–1 Birmingham

Recent form and head-to-head from our settled results — context behind the fair price. The price itself comes from the sharp market, not from these alone.

Public, timestamped record

Logged before kick-off
Prediction record
Pick 1 · Home win
Odds recorded for the prediction 1.56
Closing odds 1.48
Prediction CLV +5.4%
Result Won
Value-bet record

Recorded when the site showed it, before kick-off. Its seal is in our public export once this match’s row is published, and in the next daily external snapshot (07:40 Bucharest time: 04:40 UTC in summer time, 05:40 UTC in winter); for flags recorded on match day that snapshot comes after kick-off, so the pre-kick-off proof is our own timestamp.

Value selection 1 · Birmingham
Odds when flagged 1.67
Fair odds 1.62
Closing odds 1.51
Value CLV +10.8%
Profit (units) +0.67
Result Won
Prediction hash — integrity fingerprint 91b88502e908962c

This hash fingerprints the prediction as recorded: teams, kick-off time, our model probabilities, the Pinnacle prices recorded for it (at logging or, if there were none, the first quoted after logging and before kick-off, which can be written in after the match) and the log time. A later edit to any of them would change it (a rescheduled kick-off changes it too). It does not cover closing prices, the result or the value-bet record above; value flags recorded live have their own seal in the public record. Verify in the public record →

Every day a snapshot of the full public record is published to a public Git repository and timestamped with OpenTimestamps. Timestamped snapshots are never overwritten and the Git history shows any difference, so a later change to a past row is visible by comparing two snapshots. The corrections file lists the corrections we announced. Verify on the public log →

Since 20 June 2026 the public record is snapshotted daily (07:40 Bucharest time: 04:40 UTC in summer time, 05:40 UTC in winter) to an external log. A prediction is externally timestamped before kick-off only if it was in a snapshot taken before the match; predictions logged on match day, or whose Pinnacle price was added after logging, first appear there after kick-off. Value flags have been recorded live only since 26 September 2026; earlier value flags were reconstructed on that date.

Methodology

The fair price comes from the sharp market itself: we strip the margin from Pinnacle-style odds — the most accurate public predictor in existence — and use our calibrated Elo + form model as a cross-check and as the fallback where no sharp price exists. Value is flagged only where a softer bookmaker prices a selection above that fair price, never on long shots (implied probability under 30%), and never beyond a plausible band. Most of the time there is no value — and we say so.

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