Matchday 8 is twelve fixtures over three days — one at 8pm on Friday, then three at 12.30pm and six at 3pm on Saturday, then one at 12pm and one at 1.30pm on Sunday — and then nothing: the division does not play again until Friday 9 October, nineteen days after the last of these kicks off. Matchday 7 produced thirty-seven goals, split six home wins, two draws and four away wins; once Tuesday’s two held-over Matchday 6 fixtures had been played as well, four clubs had fourteen points with the same record — four wins, two draws, one defeat — and every one of them plays away this week. The model leans home in eight of the twelve and away in four, and its closest call of the season so far is one of them.
Gameweek 8 – Stats & Historical Data
All Fixtures — Head to Head, Form & Historical Positions
Championship - Matchday 8 Preview
Season 2026-27 | Powered by 6 seasons of historical data
Bristol City14th
Watford21stxGF: 8.1 | xGA: 5.4 (+2.6)
xGF: 6.2 | xGA: 10.0 (-3.8)
18 Sep 2026 - 2026-27
Cardiff17th
Charlton20thxGF: 9.2 | xGA: 8.6 (+0.6)
xGF: 6.7 | xGA: 9.0 (-2.3)
19 Sep 2026 - 2026-27
Millwall12th
West Ham8thxGF: 9.0 | xGA: 5.4 (+3.6)
xGF: 8.7 | xGA: 6.4 (+2.3)
19 Sep 2026 - 2026-27
Stoke City7th
Sheffield Utd10thxGF: 5.0 | xGA: 7.7 (-2.7)
xGF: 7.6 | xGA: 6.0 (+1.6)
19 Sep 2026 - 2026-27
Burnley22nd
Derby23rdxGF: 8.2 | xGA: 6.9 (+1.3)
xGF: 5.0 | xGA: 10.3 (-5.3)
19 Sep 2026 - 2026-27
Birmingham6th
Middlesbrough1stxGF: 9.2 | xGA: 6.9 (+2.4)
xGF: 12.3 | xGA: 3.6 (+8.7)
19 Sep 2026 - 2026-27
QPR9th
Preston24thxGF: 8.1 | xGA: 5.4 (+2.7)
xGF: 4.0 | xGA: 9.7 (-5.7)
19 Sep 2026 - 2026-27
Portsmouth11th
Blackburn13thxGF: 5.4 | xGA: 6.0 (-0.6)
xGF: 4.8 | xGA: 10.9 (-6.0)
19 Sep 2026 - 2026-27
Lincoln16th
Swansea2ndxGF: 6.1 | xGA: 10.2 (-4.1)
xGF: 7.8 | xGA: 6.7 (+1.2)
19 Sep 2026 - 2026-27
Wrexham18th
Southampton5thxGF: 6.2 | xGA: 5.1 (+1.0)
xGF: 8.5 | xGA: 5.6 (+3.0)
19 Sep 2026 - 2026-27
Wolves3rd
West Brom4thxGF: 8.7 | xGA: 4.7 (+4.0)
xGF: 10.0 | xGA: 6.8 (+3.3)
20 Sep 2026 - 2026-27
Norwich15th
Bolton19thxGF: 5.1 | xGA: 7.8 (-2.6)
xGF: 8.1 | xGA: 12.2 (-4.1)
20 Sep 2026 - 2026-27
Matchday 8 - Historical Insights
Playoff Race: Teams in 6th place at matchday 8 have averaged 14 points historically.
Relegation Battle: Teams in 22nd at matchday 8 have averaged 6 points historically.
Current Championship Table
Championship Table
Key Storylines This Week
What to Watch For
- Twelve fixtures over three days, then nineteen days of nothing: One at 8pm on Friday, then three at 12.30pm and six at 3pm on Saturday, then one at 12pm and one at 1.30pm on Sunday. Bristol City and Watford open it on their own on Friday night. Wolves and Portsmouth come into the round having played six where everyone else has played seven; their Matchday 6 fixture is not until October. After Sunday the division stops until Friday 9 October.
- Thirty-seven goals, and six of the twelve won by the home side: Matchday 7 finished six home wins, two draws and four away wins. The widest result was West Ham 6-0 Wrexham, on the Friday night, and nothing else was decided by more than two. Last week’s match of the week, the one the model all but could not split, produced the most goals of the round: Middlesbrough 4-3 Norwich. Wolves won 1-0 at Sheffield United on the Sunday, Lincoln won 1-0 at Preston, and Charlton and Portsmouth drew 0-0. We hold expected goals for eight of the twelve so far, and for every match played in the six rounds before it; nothing on this page compares Matchday 7 on expected goals.
- Two models behind every fixture, and where they part: The bars under each fixture come from the 1X2 model; the likeliest scorelines beneath them come from a separate goals model and are its outright three likeliest scores, listed as they stand rather than filtered to agree with the bars. Because they are two models rather than one, on two of the twelve they name different winners — Lincoln v Swansea and Portsmouth v Blackburn, and in both the bars lean away while the goal rates lean home. Each of those fixtures says so beneath it. We print both readings rather than choose between them. The model leans to the home side in eight of the twelve and to the away side in four. In none of the twelve is the draw the most likely outcome — you can read that off the bars beside each fixture, and the likeliest score consistent with each call is a one-goal win in every case. After seven rounds the goal rates it works from all sit between 0.94 and 1.78 a side, and rates in that range keep winning margins tight. Whether that spreads out depends on how far the goal rates move as the season goes on.
Championship Top Scorers
Top Scorers Heading into Gameweek 8
Top Assists — 2025/26 season
Last season’s assist leaders, shown for context. The club against each name is the one they played for in 2025/26; some will have moved over the summer.
Top Assist Providers
Championship Top Assists
Head to Head
Birmingham vs Middlesbrough
Last 5 league meetings
| Date | Home | Score | Away | xG |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Sep 2026 2026-27 | Birmingham | 2 - 2 | Middlesbrough | 1.2 - 2.1 |
| 02 Mar 2026 2025-26 | Birmingham | 1 - 3 | Middlesbrough | 0.6 - 1.1 |
| 08 Nov 2025 2025-26 | Middlesbrough | 2 - 1 | Birmingham | 0.6 - 1.2 |
| 12 Mar 2024 2023-24 | Birmingham | 0 - 1 | Middlesbrough | 0.4 - 1.2 |
| 21 Oct 2023 2023-24 | Middlesbrough | 1 - 0 | Birmingham | 1.6 - 0.2 |
Recent Form Comparison — end of 2025/26
Form Comparison - Last 6 Games
| # | Team | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Form |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Birmingham | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 6 | +3 | 11 | LWDWWD |
| 2 | Middlesbrough | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 6 | +4 | 9 | DWWDDL |
Birmingham - Recent Results
Middlesbrough - Recent Results
xG Trends — 2025/26 season
Birmingham - 10-Match Rolling xG 2025/2026
Rolling 10-match average | Green above red = Creating more than conceding
Middlesbrough - 10-Match Rolling xG 2025/2026
Rolling 10-match average | Green above red = Creating more than conceding
Goals by Period — 2025/26 season
Birmingham - Goals by Time Period 2025/2026
Middlesbrough - Goals by Time Period 2025/2026
Historical Position at Matchday 8
Historical Position Comparison
Birmingham - Saturday 19th September 2026
| Season | Pos | Pts | GD | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-27 (now) | 6th | 23 | +10 | - |
| 2025-26 | 12th | 11 | -3 | 10th |
| 2023-24 | 10th | 12 | +1 | 22nd |
| 2022-23 | 22nd | 8 | -3 | 17th |
| 2021-22 | 11th | 11 | +0 | 21st |
| 2020-21 | 15th | 10 | +0 | 18th |
| 2019-20 | 11th | 13 | -2 | 21st |
Historical Position Comparison
Middlesbrough - Saturday 19th September 2026
| Season | Pos | Pts | GD | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-27 (now) | 1st | 28 | +13 | - |
| 2025-26 | 1st | 18 | +7 | 4th |
| 2024-25 | 7th | 14 | +4 | 10th |
| 2023-24 | 22nd | 5 | -8 | 8th |
| 2022-23 | 17th | 9 | -1 | 4th |
| 2021-22 | 16th | 9 | -1 | 7th |
| 2020-21 | 8th | 13 | +3 | 10th |
| 2019-20 | 15th | 9 | -1 | 18th |
Player to Watch
Will Lankshear — Middlesbrough
Will Lankshear has six goals in seven matches for Middlesbrough — six of the fourteen they have scored, and more than anyone in the division bar Cyle Larin. He scored eleven in this division for Oxford United across the whole of last season, which is what the radar below is drawn from; he is already past half of that with seven rounds played. Birmingham have conceded nine in seven, and have not lost at home.
Radar: 2025/26 season data.
Will Lankshear
Oxford United • M • 2025-2026 Season
BTP Verdict
The number worth reading here is the margin rather than the score: the model puts 67% on this finishing within a goal, and the likeliest scorelines are 1-1 12%, 1-0 11%, 0-1 9% — none of them close to certain, and the best-supported one carries barely more than a tenth of the probability. Birmingham have drawn four of seven; Middlesbrough’s last two produced eleven goals. The bars say it is even; the recent scorelines do not agree on what even looks like.
Two derbies, and the model is not neutral in either
The BBC’s EFL podcast this week notes that Saturday sees “Millwall face West Ham for the first time since 2012”, a 12.30pm kick-off at The Den. West Ham’s last league match was a 6-0 win over Wrexham; they have scored twenty in seven, more than anyone in the division, from nine different scorers, and the model makes them 60.3% to win — the firmest away call on the card. Millwall have won three and lost three of seven, lost 3-1 at Blackburn on Saturday and drew 2-2 at Middlesbrough in Tuesday’s held-over Matchday 6 fixture. On Sunday at 12pm Wolves host West Brom, one of the four clubs on fourteen, and do so without Raul Jimenez. Wolves boss Cesar Peixoto told BBC Radio WM after Wednesday’s cup defeat at Everton, in which Jimenez went off with a knee injury: “He will stay injured for a few weeks. But we have this break for the internationals to recover, so he will stay with us.” Wolves have played six to West Brom’s seven — their Matchday 6 fixture against Portsmouth is not until October — and have eleven points to West Brom’s fourteen. The model backs the hosts, 50.4% to 24.0%, with no knowledge of who is missing. Neither derby is the match of the week, for a mundane reason: neither West Ham nor Wolves were in this division last season, so the previous-season comparisons that block is built on have nothing to draw. Six of the twenty-four clubs are in that position.
Four clubs on fourteen, all away — and a fifth with the same record
Middlesbrough, Swansea, West Brom and West Ham have fourteen points each from four wins, two draws and one defeat, and nobody else has more. What separates them is goals: West Ham have scored twenty and conceded nine; Swansea have scored eleven and conceded five, as few as anyone. All four are on the road this week — West Ham at Millwall, Swansea at Lincoln, Middlesbrough at Birmingham and West Brom at Wolves — and the model does not treat them alike. It makes West Ham clear favourites at 60.3% and leans to Swansea at 48.9%; it leans against West Brom at Molineux; and at Birmingham it can only just separate the two sides — 0.4 percentage points, the narrowest margin it has produced this season. There is a fifth club with the same 4-2-1 record: Southampton, whose ten points are what remains of fourteen after a four-point deduction. They go to Wrexham on Saturday with Cyle Larin, whose seven goals are more than anyone else in the division has.
The model has made Cardiff favourites five rounds running. They have not won a match
Cardiff have drawn four and lost three of seven, and they and Burnley are the only clubs without a win. The model has not read them that way at any point since Matchday 3: it has made Cardiff the likelier winner in each round since — five fixtures, three of them away from home — and they have won none of the five: Cardiff v Sheffield Utd at 67.2%, drawn 2-2; QPR v Cardiff at 39.0%, lost 2-1; Portsmouth v Cardiff at 45.7%, lost 2-0; Cardiff v Stoke City at 70.1%, drawn 1-1; Bolton v Cardiff at 54.8%, lost 1-0. This week it goes further still and makes Cardiff at home to Charlton the firmest call on the entire card, 66.7% against 12.1%, wider than any fixture involving the four clubs on fourteen. The goals model does not share that confidence: its goal rates read this one 39% / 27% / 33% home, draw and away, close to level, and the fixture says so beneath it. Charlton have twelve points from three wins and three draws, but have scored six in seven — as few as any club in the division — and their last two matches finished 0-0. The model does not count wins directly; it works from rolling form, goals and player ratings, and on those it keeps rating Cardiff. Cardiff have drawn four, the joint-most in the division with Birmingham and Wrexham, and the model has not made the draw its likeliest outcome in any fixture this round. We print the run so you can weigh the call against it.
Preston change manager; Burnley wait for a first win
Preston have won one and lost six of seven, without a draw — they and Norwich are the only clubs yet to draw a match — and lost 0-1 at home to Lincoln in Matchday 7. The Lancashire Post reported on 16 September that Paul Heckingbottom departed on the Sunday and that first-team coach Jason Euell, as interim manager, “is set to take charge of North End’s away game against QPR this weekend”. The model makes QPR 60.9% to win it, its second-firmest home call of the round; QPR have conceded five in seven, as few as anyone, and Preston have scored six. Burnley host Derby at 3pm on Saturday: three draws and four defeats against one win, one draw and five defeats, and Burnley have conceded sixteen, more than anyone. Kyle Walker told BBC Radio Lancashire this week: “I’ve never wanted a victory so much because there’s a lot of noise.” The model has Burnley at 48.7% — a lean rather than a call, on a card where the firmest figure is 66.7.
Player Watchlist
Three players from three different clubs to keep an eye on this weekend.
- Cyle Larin (Southampton) — Seven goals in seven matches for Southampton, seven of the eighteen they have scored.
- Will Lankshear (Middlesbrough) — Six goals in seven matches for Middlesbrough, six of the fourteen they have scored.
- Jarrod Bowen (West Ham) — Four goals in seven matches for West Ham, four of the twenty they have scored.
BTP Predictions — Gameweek 8
Final Thoughts
Twelve matches, then a nineteen-day gap. Four clubs level on fourteen and all four away; two derbies the model leans one way on; a club it keeps backing that keeps not winning; and, at 3pm on Saturday, a fixture it splits by 0.4 percentage points — closer than anything it has produced since the season began. That is the match of the week, and the reason is the number.
Bristol City vs Watford
📊 ML Probability
Match Prediction
The model’s most likely outcome is Bristol City, at 47.5% / 26.4% / 26.1% home, draw and away. It puts 66% on the match finishing within a goal; the likeliest scorelines are 1-1 12%, 1-0 12%, 2-1 9%, none of them close to certain.
Cardiff vs Charlton
📊 ML Probability
Match Prediction
The model’s most likely outcome is Cardiff, at 66.7% / 21.2% / 12.1% home, draw and away. It puts 69% on the match finishing within a goal; the likeliest scorelines are 1-1 13%, 1-0 12%, 0-1 11%, none of them close to certain. The goals model agrees on the winner but not on the margin: its rates read this one 39% / 27% / 33% home, draw and away, against the 66.7% the bars give.
Millwall vs West Ham
📊 ML Probability
Match Prediction
The model’s most likely outcome is West Ham, at 20.7% / 19.0% / 60.3% home, draw and away. It puts 63% on the match finishing within a goal; the likeliest scorelines are 1-1 11%, 0-1 10%, 1-2 10%, none of them close to certain.
Stoke City vs Sheffield Utd
📊 ML Probability
Match Prediction
The model’s most likely outcome is Stoke City, at 52.2% / 24.4% / 23.4% home, draw and away. It puts 65% on the match finishing within a goal; the likeliest scorelines are 1-0 12%, 1-1 12%, 2-1 9%, none of them close to certain.
Birmingham vs Middlesbrough
📊 ML Probability
Match Prediction
The model’s most likely outcome is Birmingham, at 39.4% / 21.6% / 39.0% home, draw and away. It puts 67% on the match finishing within a goal; the likeliest scorelines are 1-1 12%, 1-0 11%, 0-1 9%, none of them close to certain.
Burnley vs Derby
📊 ML Probability
Match Prediction
The model’s most likely outcome is Burnley, at 48.7% / 22.6% / 28.7% home, draw and away. It puts 68% on the match finishing within a goal; the likeliest scorelines are 1-1 12%, 1-0 11%, 0-1 9%, none of them close to certain.
Lincoln vs Swansea
📊 ML Probability
Match Prediction
The model’s most likely outcome is Swansea, at 23.4% / 27.7% / 48.9% home, draw and away. It puts 69% on the match finishing within a goal; the likeliest scorelines are 1-1 13%, 1-0 12%, 0-1 10%, none of them close to certain. The two models part company here: the bars come from the 1X2 model, while the goal rates behind those scorelines read it 42% / 27% / 31% home, draw and away, favouring Lincoln. We publish both rather than pick between them — a fixture the two disagree about is one neither is confident in.
Portsmouth vs Blackburn
📊 ML Probability
Match Prediction
The model’s most likely outcome is Blackburn, at 36.4% / 25.9% / 37.7% home, draw and away. It puts 67% on the match finishing within a goal; the likeliest scorelines are 1-1 12%, 1-0 12%, 2-1 9%, none of them close to certain. The two models part company here: the bars come from the 1X2 model, while the goal rates behind those scorelines read it 45% / 26% / 29% home, draw and away, favouring Portsmouth. As above, both readings are published rather than one chosen.
QPR vs Preston
📊 ML Probability
Match Prediction
The model’s most likely outcome is QPR, at 60.9% / 21.8% / 17.3% home, draw and away. It puts 66% on the match finishing within a goal; the likeliest scorelines are 1-0 13%, 1-1 12%, 2-0 9%, none of them close to certain.
Wrexham vs Southampton
📊 ML Probability
Match Prediction
The model’s most likely outcome is Southampton, at 24.7% / 19.0% / 56.3% home, draw and away. It puts 66% on the match finishing within a goal; the likeliest scorelines are 1-1 12%, 0-1 10%, 1-2 9%, none of them close to certain.
Wolves vs West Brom
📊 ML Probability
Match Prediction
The model’s most likely outcome is Wolves, at 50.4% / 25.6% / 24.0% home, draw and away. It puts 66% on the match finishing within a goal; the likeliest scorelines are 1-0 12%, 1-1 12%, 2-1 9%, none of them close to certain.
Norwich vs Bolton
📊 ML Probability
Match Prediction
The model’s most likely outcome is Norwich, at 56.0% / 24.5% / 19.5% home, draw and away. It puts 61% on the match finishing within a goal; the likeliest scorelines are 1-0 12%, 1-1 11%, 2-0 10%, none of them close to certain.
🤖 Model Notes — GW8
Two different things appear on this tab and they are worth separating. The probability bars are our Championship model (goals_logreg_v1_cal), which has produced rows for every fixture from Matchday 2 onwards — there were none at Matchday 1, because it needs at least one completed match per side.
The scorelines come from a separate model: a Poisson goals model with a Dixon-Coles low-score correction (goals_poisson_v1). It estimates a goal rate for each side from their last five matches in this division — reaching back into last season where a club has them, not this season alone — then builds a grid of every plausible score.
What the table shows for each fixture is the margin — how likely the match is to finish within a goal — and then the three likeliest exact scores with their probabilities, taken straight from that grid. They are listed outright rather than filtered to agree with the call above them, so on a fixture where the two models pull against each other you will see scorelines that do not match the bars. That is the grid being shown as it is, not an error. A single pick appears in only one place, the match of the week, where it is the conditional modal scoreline: the likeliest exact score consistent with the 1X2 call — which can sit below the top line of the table.
Where a club has played fewer than five matches in this division, the missing games are filled with last season’s divisional average rather than left blank. We say so beneath a fixture when a side is leaning on that filler for three or more of its five, and publish no scoreline at all where both sides are leaning on it for all five, because the model would then return the same figures it would give any two clubs in that position. Every side playing this week has a full five matches in this division behind it, so no filler is used anywhere and no fixture carries the note.
That is a change: until Matchday 4 the goals model had produced nothing for 2026/27 and the published scorelines came from a pre-season ranking of the two squads instead — so much of the season record above was earned under that previous method rather than the one used here.
There is a probability chart on this tab for each of the 12 fixtures being previewed, not a selection of them.
Model: Platt-calibrated Logistic Regression with player-quality features (goals_logreg_v1_cal), trained on 3,266 Championship matches (2019/20–2024/25). Log loss 1.064 vs baseline 1.073. Full methodology here.
Check back after the weekend for our full Gameweek 8 Championship review with match reports and updated standings!
