Matchweek 8 of the Scottish Premiership brought emphatic scorelines at the top and tight margins elsewhere, headlined by Heart Of Midlothian delivering a five-goal rout against St Mirren while both Glasgow sides secured expected victories. Across the six fixtures, our forecasting model had an uneven round: strong projections on the frontrunners were offset by a difficult showing in the goals analysis, where our expectations for open scoring misread several defensive displays.
How our forecasts did
The round proved especially difficult for our both teams to score projections, which performed worst across the weekend as only one of the six calls landed. Clean sheets for Dundee Utd, Heart Of Midlothian, Celtic, and St Johnstone repeatedly broke our projections for two-way scoring. Exact scorelines also finished empty, with none of the six projections hitting the board.
Our most dependable areas were the win or draw calls, where four of the six landed, matching a four-of-six return on both total goals and first team to score. The model identified early control for Falkirk, Heart Of Midlothian, Rangers, and Celtic. In the match result column, the record split evenly: three of the six match result calls landed, correctly selecting Heart Of Midlothian, Rangers, and Celtic while missing on the three mid-table contests. Half-time and full-time projections mirrored that return, with three of the six calls verified.
Results
Dundee Utd 1-0 Hibernian Dundee Utd edged a tight contest through a single strike. Our model favoured an away win on low confidence, missing the match result call and the projection for more than 2.5 goals, though our win or draw projection that the game would produce a winner either way was validated.
Falkirk 1-2 Dundee Falkirk struck first to confirm our call on the opening scorer, but Dundee recovered to take all three points. That turnaround ruined our call for a Falkirk win or draw, though the open nature of the game brought home our projections for both teams to score and more than 2.5 goals in the match.
Heart Of Midlothian 5-0 St Mirren Heart Of Midlothian produced the standout performance of the round, dominating from start to finish against a struggling St Mirren side. Our firm projection for a home win, the call on Heart Of Midlothian leading at half-time and full-time, and the projection for more than 2.5 goals all landed with ease, even if St Mirren's blank left our both teams to score call short.
Rangers 3-1 Kilmarnock Rangers maintained their strong form by creating regular openings and taking an early lead to secure the points. Our firm calls for a home win, Rangers to score first, and more than 2.5 total goals all proved accurate, though Kilmarnock's second-half reply denied our projection that at least one side would fail to score.
Motherwell 0-2 Celtic Celtic controlled proceedings against an out-of-form Motherwell side, taking an early advantage and seeing out a clean sheet. Our firm calls for a Celtic win and the visitors to strike first landed comfortably, while our expectation of higher scoring missed as the hosts failed to register.
Aberdeen 0-1 St Johnstone St Johnstone ground out a narrow away victory to hand Aberdeen another frustrating afternoon. Our call for fewer than 2.5 goals proved accurate, but our cautious projection for an Aberdeen home win missed entirely as the hosts failed to turn possession into clear openings.
What we got wrong
The round's sharpest disconnect came in the projection for Aberdeen to hold off St Johnstone. Our model placed faith in Aberdeen's tidy home record and squad depth, but overlooked their ongoing lack of chance creation. Generating few shots and failing to break down organized defensive lines has become a pattern for the hosts, and St Johnstone's compact shape punished that lack of cutting edge.
Our projections also struggled by assuming Dundee Utd and Hibernian would produce an end-to-end meeting. Hibernian's previous away scoring record did not travel, and Dundee United's finishing efficiency was enough to decide a cagey fixture that never opened up.
With Celtic and Rangers collecting victories and Heart Of Midlothian demonstrating sharp attacking form, the top places in the table solidified while the middle pack remains tightly congested.
