How to Pick the Right Scoreline: Football Prediction Guide | ScoreBadger
Prediction Strategy
8 min read
How to Pick the Right Scoreline for Every Match
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You have stared at the fixture list. You know Arsenal will probably beat Nottingham Forest at home. But what score? 2-0? 2-1? 3-1? Every option feels equally plausible, and you end up going with your gut. That is how most people pick scorelines. But there is a better way.
Picking the exact score is the hardest part of any prediction game - it is also where the big points live. In ScoreBadger, an exact score is worth 3 points versus 1 for the correct result. So getting your scoreline selection process right is the single biggest lever you have for climbing the leaderboard.
Start with what happens most often
Before you think about individual matches, you need to know the baseline. The Premier League produces a surprisingly narrow range of common scorelines. If you looked at every match from the last 10 seasons, a handful of results account for over half of all outcomes.
That means roughly 60% of all Premier League matches finish with one of just seven scorelines. Everything else - your 4-3 thrillers, 5-0 hammerings, 3-2 comebacks - they happen, but they are the exception. If you are consistently picking from that top seven, you are already giving yourself the best odds.
The two-question framework
Instead of staring at a fixture and trying to pluck a score out of thin air, ask yourself two questions:
1. Who will win (or will it be a draw?)
This is your result prediction. Home win, away win, or draw. Get this right and you bank 1 point regardless of the score. Think about quality gap, home advantage, recent form, and motivation. Do not overthink it. Most matches have a fairly obvious favourite.
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2. How many goals will there be?
This is the harder question but also the more important one. A match can be low-scoring (0-1 total goals), moderate (2-3 goals), or high-scoring (4+). Your job is to figure out which bracket a match falls into, and then pick the most likely score within that bracket.
Once you have answers to both questions, your scoreline practically picks itself.
Profiling the match: attack vs defence
The best way to estimate how many goals a match will produce is to look at what each team does well and badly.
Strong attack vs weak defence
When a good attacking team faces a side that leaks goals, you should expect a higher total. Think Manchester City hosting a team that has conceded 2+ goals in four of their last five away matches. This is where 3-0, 3-1, or even 4-1 becomes realistic.
But do not go mad. Even in lopsided matchups, the most common scorelines are still in the 2-0 to 3-1 range. A 5-0 makes headlines precisely because it is rare.
Strong defence vs weak attack
When a solid defensive team faces a blunt attack, expect fewer goals. These matches often finish 1-0 or 0-0. Teams that are well-drilled defensively can smother games, especially at home.
When both teams score freely, you get the exciting matches - but they are also the hardest to predict exactly. The total could be anywhere from 2 to 6 goals. In these cases, go with a moderate-to-high score like 2-1 or 2-2. Predicting 4-3 is tempting but almost never correct.
Two poor attacks
A pair of struggling attacking sides will grind out a low-scoring match. 1-0 and 0-0 are your friends here. These matches are dull to watch but rewarding to predict correctly.
Using the form table
Recent form is your best friend for scoreline selection. A team's last five or six matches tell you a lot about their current level, and the form table is one of the most useful tools you have.
Look specifically at:
Goals scored per match in the last 5 - tells you their current attacking output
Goals conceded per match in the last 5 - tells you their current defensive solidity
Home vs away splits - some teams are completely different animals at home
Clean sheets - a team keeping regular clean sheets is a sign to predict fewer goals
Do not look at the whole season average. A team that averaged 1.8 goals per match over 30 games might currently be on a run of 0.6 goals per match if their star striker is injured. The recent form is what matters for your next prediction.
Context matters more than you think
Match importance
High-stakes matches tend to be tighter. Cup finals, relegation six-pointers, and last-day title deciders are usually cagey. Teams protect what they have before trying to attack. Lower your expected goal total for matches where the pressure is intense.
Conversely, matches where both teams have little to play for can be oddly open. Neither side is particularly bothered about conceding, so goals can flow.
Schedule congestion
Teams playing their third match in eight days are tired. Tired teams make more defensive errors and create fewer chances. The result is not always fewer goals - sometimes fatigue leads to sloppy defending and a 3-2 - but it generally means less control, less structure, and more randomness.
When both teams are fatigued, hedge towards the mean: 1-1 or 2-1.
Weather and pitch conditions
This one gets overlooked. Wet, heavy pitches slow the game down, reduce passing accuracy, and make it harder to create clear chances. A rainy midweek fixture in November is more likely to finish 1-0 than 3-2. You cannot control for this in advance for every match, but if you know conditions will be bad, adjust your prediction downward.
The default scoreline strategy
If you are short on time and cannot do deep research for every match, here is a practical framework that works well over a full season:
Clear home favourite: predict 2-0 or 2-1
Slight home favourite: predict 1-0 or 2-1
Even match: predict 1-1
Slight away favourite: predict 0-1 or 1-2
Clear away favourite: predict 0-2 or 1-2
Top team at home vs bottom team: predict 3-0 or 3-1
These defaults will not win you every gameweek. But they are rooted in the actual probability distribution of Premier League scorelines, and over a full season, they will keep you competitive.
For when to use a draw prediction instead, check the even match scenarios closely. If you cannot separate the sides, a 1-1 is usually the smartest option.
When to break the pattern
Defaults are great, but you also need to know when to deviate. There are a few situations where going against the common scorelines makes sense.
A team is genuinely on fire
When a team has scored 3+ goals in four consecutive matches and they are at home to a weak defence, predicting 3-0 or even 4-1 is justified. The pattern is strong enough to override the defaults.
Managerial changes
New manager bounce is real. Teams often produce unexpected results in the first two or three matches under a new boss, usually tighter at the back and more disciplined. If a team has just changed manager, consider lowering the expected goals slightly.
Key absences
A team missing their first-choice goalkeeper or centre-back pair will concede more. A team without their main striker will score less. These are obvious but worth stating - check the team news before finalising your scoreline.
Common traps to avoid
Even experienced predictors fall into scoreline traps. Here are the big ones:
Predicting high scores because the last match was exciting - one 4-3 does not mean the next match will be the same
Always picking the same scoreline - if you predict 2-1 home win for every match, you are leaving points on the table
Going for headline scores like 5-2 or 4-4 - these almost never happen and are a waste of a prediction
Ignoring the away team completely - even when a strong team is at home, the away side will usually score at least once
Changing your prediction five minutes before the deadline because of a hunch - stick with your researched pick
Most of these traps come from the same root cause: letting emotion override data. The 10 most common predictor mistakes are almost all variations of this.
Putting it all together
Here is the process in full, start to finish:
Look at the fixture and determine the likely result (home, away, draw)
Profile both teams' recent attacking and defensive form
Estimate a goal total bracket (low, moderate, high)
Pick the most common scoreline that fits your result and goal total
Check for contextual factors - schedule, importance, key absences
Adjust if anything stands out, otherwise stick with the default
This takes maybe 30 seconds per match once you have practised it. Over a gameweek of 10 matches, you are spending five minutes and making informed, data-backed predictions instead of guessing.
Try this approach on the Premier League prediction game and see how your hit rate improves. It will not make every prediction right - nothing will - but it will make more of them right over time. And in a prediction league, consistency is everything.
For a complete walkthrough of submitting your first set of predictions, read the step-by-step gameweek guide.
Most predictors play it safe with 1-0 and 2-1 scorelines. But sometimes the right call is a hammering. Here is how to spot when a blowout is coming and have the guts to predict it.
