The Scottish Premiership’s fourth matchweek delivered a string of upsets, with Dundee United’s stunning 4-0 demolition of Kilmarnock the headline act of a weekend that wrong-footed many of our model’s calls. Across six fixtures, the forecasts had a mixed time: only the win-or-draw market returned a majority correct, while exact scorelines and goals predictions struggled badly.
How our forecasts did
The model issued calls for all six matches across seven topics, and the scoreboard makes sobering reading. The best performer was win or draw, where four of the six graded calls landed — a solid if unspectacular return. Match result and first team to score each managed three correct from six, while half‑time and full‑time succeeded twice. The real trouble came in the total goals and both teams to score columns, each producing only two correct forecasts. Exact scoreline, always the most ambitious topic, hit just once — Heart of Midlothian’s 2-1 victory over St Johnstone.
In short, the round exposed the model to a series of fixtures where the underlying numbers pointed one way and the football went the other.
Results
Celtic 2-1 Falkirk
Celtic continued their perfect start but were given an unexpected examination by a Falkirk side that finally found the net after a goalless opening to their Premiership return. The model’s high‑confidence call for a home win was correct, as was the forecast that Celtic would score first and that they would be ahead at the interval and at full‑time. The clean‑sheet prediction, however, was punctured by Falkirk’s consolation, which also scuppered the exact scoreline call of 2-0.
Heart Of Midlothian 2-1 St Johnstone
The afternoon’s standout performance belonged to the model. Every single forecast for this match proved correct, from the high‑confidence match‑result call right down to the low‑confidence exact scoreline of 2‑1. Hearts’ dominance over St Johnstone continued — they have now won all 11 league meetings — and the 2‑1 scoreline repeated a pattern that has become familiar.
Kilmarnock 0-4 Dundee Utd
This was the round’s biggest shock and the model’s worst moment. All seven calls were wrong, starting with the low‑confidence tip for a Kilmarnock win and extending through the clean‑sheet and under‑2.5‑goals projections. Dundee United, winless before the weekend, tore up the script with four unanswered goals at a ground where they had never previously won in ten attempts.
Aberdeen 0-1 Rangers
Rangers ground out a narrow victory in a match that never threatened to deliver the goal‑fest the model expected. The medium‑confidence call for an away win was spot on, and Rangers did score first, but the forecast of more than 2.5 goals and both teams scoring fell flat. Aberdeen could not produce the late goal that had become a recent habit, and the 1‑2 exact scoreline was a goal too high.
Dundee 1-2 Hibernian
Dundee’s tight defence, which had conceded only once in three outings, was undone by a Hibernian side that scored twice after the 75th minute. The model’s low‑confidence call for a home win was incorrect, though the forecast that a draw was the least likely outcome did at least recognise the game would produce a winner. Every other topic missed, including the first‑goal tip for Dundee and the under‑2.5‑goals projection that was killed by three second‑half strikes.
ST Mirren 3-3 Motherwell
A six‑goal thriller blew apart every forecast that leaned towards a low‑scoring home win. The only call to survive was both teams to score, while the model’s view that a draw was the least likely outcome was spectacularly wrong. St Mirren’s back‑to‑back clean sheets were a distant memory by the end, and Motherwell’s unbeaten away run continued in the most chaotic fashion.
What we got wrong
The Kilmarnock debacle was built on a historical foundation that crumbled. The model noted that Dundee United had never won at Rugby Park in ten attempts, and with Kilmarnock’s season already in disarray after two heavy defeats, it leaned on that home dominance to call a narrow 1‑0 victory. Instead, Dundee United’s underlying expected‑goals numbers — hinting at better chances than results suggested — erupted, and Killie’s fragile confidence shattered.
Dundee’s defeat at home to Hibernian was a different kind of miss. The model liked their compact 4‑2‑3‑1 shape and two clean sheets in three games, forecasting a 1‑0 win. Hibernian, however, are a side that creates chances and, crucially, scores late; half their goals conceded this season have arrived after the 75th minute, and they repeated that trick at Dens Park. The model underestimated the visitors’ ability to find a late breakthrough.
The St Mirren v Motherwell scoreline was the round’s wildcard. The model saw a side with two clean sheets hosting a team unbeaten on the road and predicted a cagey 1‑0, but the contest turned into an attacking free‑for‑all. The pre‑match reasoning that St Mirren’s defence looked unrecognisable from the one that conceded five to Motherwell in February was true — for 90 minutes it was even more porous.
What the round changed
Matchweek 4 shook up the narrative in several pockets of the Premiership table. Heart of Midlothian’s perfect afternoon reaffirmed their status as the division’s most predictable side when facing St Johnstone, while Rangers’ clean sheet at Aberdeen was a rare moment of defensive security on the road. Dundee United’s first win moved them off the foot of the table in the most emphatic way imaginable, and the 3‑3 draw at St Mirren served as a reminder that even the tightest defensive records can evaporate in an afternoon. For the model, it was a round that punished low‑confidence calls and underlined just how quickly a fixture’s underlying story can be rewritten.
