Two teams arrive at the City Ground on Saturday, 3:00pm UK, needing a result for very different reasons. Nottingham Forest have not won any of their last five matches. Tottenham Hotspur have been worse: two league games, two defeats, no goals scored - 3-0 at Brentford and 0-2 at home to Newcastle. Only two league fixtures have been played, but Spurs already sit 18th of 20 for goals per game.
The model can barely split them, projecting 1.34 goals for Forest and 1.15 for Tottenham. The live numbers, updated through to kickoff, are on the Statz match centre.
These are expected line-ups rather than confirmed team sheets - the model's read of who starts, not the official word.
Forest are expected to line up with Matz Sels in goal behind Jair Cunha, Nikola Milenković and Murillo, with Ola Aina, Xaver Schlager, James McAtee and Neco Williams across midfield. Morgan Gibbs-White and Dan Ndoye support Igor Jesus.
Tottenham's expected XI has AntonÃn Kinský in goal, a back four of Andrew Robertson, Micky van de Ven, Jan Paul van Hecke and Archie Gray, and Sandro Tonali sitting with Rodrigo Bentancur. Mathys Tel, Mateus Fernandes and Pedro Porro operate behind Omar Marmoush.
Nottingham Forest expected XI: Sels; Cunha, Milenković, Murillo; Aina, Schlager, McAtee, Williams; Gibbs-White, Ndoye; Igor Jesus.
Tottenham expected XI: Kinský; Robertson, van de Ven, van Hecke, Gray; Tonali, Bentancur; Tel, Fernandes, Porro; Marmoush.
Forest's last five, newest first, reads D-L-L-D-L: a 2-2 draw at Liverpool that was their best result of the run, a 2-0 Carabao Cup exit against Leeds, a 0-1 home league defeat to the same opponents, then back into last season for a 1-1 draw with Bournemouth and a 3-2 defeat at Manchester United. The point at Anfield is the shape of something better, but the wins have dried up.
Tottenham's last five is L-W-L-W-L newest first: 0-2 at home to Newcastle, a 5-1 Carabao Cup stroll past Charlton, 3-0 beaten at Brentford, then last season's 1-0 win over Everton and 2-1 defeat at Chelsea. Strip out the cup game against fourth-tier opposition and the league picture is bleak - zero goals scored this season, five conceded at 2.5 per game, which ranks 16th of 20.
Mathys Tel is the one Spurs attacker whose numbers hold up: two or more shots in each of his last five appearances, 14 in total at 2.8 per game. Rodrigo Bentancur, meanwhile, has committed at least one foul in every one of his last five, 14 fouls in all at 2.8 a game - a remarkable rate for a deep midfielder and central to how this game is likely to be refereed.
For Forest, Igor Jesus has hit the target in four of his last five appearances, and Dan Ndoye has committed at least one foul in all five of his. Tottenham as a team are averaging 14.5 fouls per league game, rank 2 of 20; Forest sit on 12.5, rank 6. Craig Pawson, who has refereed one league game this season with four yellow cards among 19 fouls, takes the whistle.
One number worth respecting on the home side: Forest's projected 16.91 tackles is the highest team figure the model produces for this fixture, against Tottenham's 15.04. Nobody is expecting an open game.
See the live Statz numbers for this fixture.
The model's value board for this fixture is wall-to-wall fouls, and the top of it is Morgan Gibbs-White to commit 1+ foul: the single likeliest player outcome it rates for this game, priced 15th by the market at 1.53 at the time of writing. Nikola Milenković at 1.67 for 1+ foul carries a near-identical gap, with his 2+ line at 4.00.
On the Spurs side, Micky van de Ven for 1+ foul was 1.40 at the time of writing, with the model ranking him second-likeliest on its board against a market price ranked 15th, and his 2+ foul line at 2.75 also rated well ahead of its price. A centre-back defending a box that has already shipped five goals in two games, against a front line led by Igor Jesus's four-from-five on-target record, is exactly where those lines get matched.
The goals markets are less inviting: 1.34 plus 1.15 projected is 2.49 combined, and Tottenham have neither scored nor kept a clean sheet in the league this season. The round-wide numbers live on the Statz projections page.
The model can barely separate these teams, 1.34 projected goals to 1.15, in a meeting of one side that has stopped winning and another that has not started scoring. Low totals, high tackle counts and two of the division's more foul-prone line-ups point to a scrap rather than a spectacle. Gibbs-White and van de Ven in the foul markets, at 1.53 and 1.40 at the time of writing, are the plays the numbers back hardest.