Manchester City got the job done at home against Ipswich, running out 3-2 winners in a match that proved tighter than most would've expected beforehand. Foden opened the scoring early on after Doku's assist, but Ipswich hit back almost immediately through Maeda's finish. City regained control when Haaland made it 2-1 in the 34th minute from Kovačić's pass, then sealed it with a second Haaland goal in the 69th courtesy of Ndiaye's delivery. Flemming pulled one back from the penalty spot deep into injury time, but it came too late.

Our model had predicted a 3-0 shutout, leaning heavily on City's dominant home record and Ipswich's vulnerability on the road. That lean was grounded in solid pre-match logic—City were in title-chasing form while Ipswich came with the motivation you'd expect from a mid-table visitor. The result direction was spot on, but the scoreline told a different story. Rather than a clean sheet, Ipswich found the net twice and forced City to work harder than the early team sheets suggested they'd need to. The 67% win probability we'd assigned to City proved reasonable enough, though it didn't account for how resilient the visitors would be once they got their chance in that opening spell.

City still took the points and kept their title push on track, but this wasn't the comprehensive performance the model had flagged. Sometimes the underlying factors line up the right way for the result without the match playing out in the predicted shape—and that's what happened here.