No, no and Bradford

Well, Oldham didn't send their fans home overly happy on Saturday, only drawing 1-1 with their Yorkshire neighbours Huddersfield. Furthermore it seems a very poor turn-out from Huddersfield led to the attendance being only a paltry 7,000, as opposed to the 9,500 gate predicted. So that's a no and a no.

Moving on to Bradford, another Yorkshire neighbour, to whom Latics travel this afternoon. It turns out Latics have won their previous five matches against Bradford home and away, and given Latics occupy 4th position, and Bradford 22nd, one might reasonably expect a Latics win. Sure enough, my model suggests Latics have a 52% chance of winning, with Bradford only a meagre 23%. Of course, such models struggle to take into account the late season desperation which tends to surround matches involving sides in the relegation zone, and leads to them out-performing relative to their league position.

Given further that Latics have failed to win their previous two matches away against teams in or near the relegation zone, this suggests a draw. I'll be disappointed if that happens, but I can see it happening. Probabilities for individual scores run something like this: the most probable score is a 1-0 Latics win, with 13%, then a 1-1 draw following with a 12% probability. I'd go for that myself. There's a 2% probability on Latics repeating their 4-1 win at Bradford last season.

Come on Oldham!

Also, if Scunthorpe win their match away at Northampton today, and Nottm Forest fail to win at home to Rotherham, Scunthorpe will be promoted. A Scunthorpe win has a 47% probability, a draw or Rotherham win at the City Ground at 37%, suggesting that, assuming these two events are independent of each other (!), that there's actually only a 17% probability of Scunthorpe securing promotion today. By next week though I'm sure it'll be confirmed...