No 4-fold this Saturday: one leg on the board, and why I won't pad it with three coin flips

There's no Best 4-fold this Saturday, because only one game on the whole card scored 7.0 or more. That leg is Southampton to win at Preston, about 2 times in 3 on our numbers, and it's free in full below. 2 in 3 of our picks win (69%), every one of them is published with its result, and the board, the near misses and the 14th's 4-fold are yours for 14 days free, no card.

Why Saturday's board is one leg

Saturday 7th November is a thin weekend for the lower leagues. League One and League Two have no league games, and the National League has one. That leaves the Championship: one game on Friday night, three at 12:30 and eight at 3pm.

Every one of those twelve Championship games has been scored by the team strength rating, and Southampton are the only side to reach 7.0. The rest sit between 3.5 and 6.4. Nothing else is coming, so the board is final at one leg.

What padding it would cost you

You could build a 4-fold anyway. The next three best 3pm games scored 6.4, 6.2 and 6.1, and on the goals model the sides they point to win 51%, 50% and 41% of the time. That's three coin flips.

Put them on a slip with Southampton and the 4-fold drops to about 1 in 14 (7%). Our weakest Best 4-fold so far went out at about 1 in 7 (14%), so the padded one is half as likely to land as the worst one we've built. Each leg you add roughly halves your chance. A coin-flip leg does at least that, and all it gives you back is a bigger number at the bottom of the slip.

So I won't build one. The 4-fold exists to put four legs the numbers rate on one slip, all at 3pm, and this Saturday the numbers only rate one.

The free leg: Southampton to win at Preston

Preston host Southampton in the Championship at 3pm on Saturday. Southampton win this about 2 times in 3 on our numbers, a 67% win chance, and the team strength rating scores it 7.6 out of 10. It went out on Wednesday 4th November at a price of 1.65.

It's 6th against 24th, and the ratings have a big gap between them: 1,626 against 1,366. The shot numbers say the same. Southampton average 5.0 shots on target a game and 1.70 xG, and Preston manage 1.6 and 0.85. Southampton are unbeaten in five (DWWDW), they score 2.1 a game and let in 1.0, and they've won 3 of the last 5 meetings. They were on our board last Saturday too and beat QPR 4-1 at 1.78.

What cuts against it is the away record. Southampton have won 2, drawn 3 and lost 2 on the road, a 29% win rate away from home. A Southampton draw has cost us before. They were the strongest leg in our 17th October 4-fold, a 74% win chance, and drew 0-0 with Bolton.

Last Saturday's 4-fold: 3 from 4, Barrow let us down

Saturday 31st October's Best 4-fold went out at about 1 in 5 (22%), the best chance of any 4-fold we've built. Three legs came in and Barrow drew.

£10 on it at the released prices would have returned £37.78. Across the whole day, 7 of our 10 Saturday picks won. Both 12:30 picks came in, Stoke beating Preston 2-0 and Norwich beating Watford 3-2, along with Southampton 4-1 against QPR and Salford 2-1 against Exeter. Worthing lost 3-0 at home to Sutton and Oldham lost 1-0 to Crawley.

Five 4-folds, five near misses

That's five Best 4-folds settled, and all five went 3 from 4. 4-folds: 0 landed from 5. On the win chances they went out with, missing all five was about a 2 in 5 chance (39%), so a run like this was always possible.

The legs themselves have done better than the numbers said. On those win chances, about 13 of the 20 legs should have won, and 15 did. One leg has gone every week, and you couldn't have picked it in advance. Barrow were the weakest leg on last Saturday's slip, and Southampton were the strongest on 17th October. In testing (2021 to 2026) the top four on a Saturday landed on about 1 Saturday in 5, between 21% and 24%. Five weeks is too short to change how the acca's built, and it's on the results page the same as the winners.

The record and what's next

No picks have settled since Tuesday's post. Across every released pick, 2 in 3 of our picks win (69%), and every pick, price and result is on /results, the draws and the defeats included. Tipsters bury their near misses, and we publish every one.

League One, League Two and the National League are all back on Saturday 14th November. Those legs land the morning their numbers are final, usually days before kick-off, and that's where the 4-fold comes back. Southampton is the only leg this weekend, and it's free. The 14th's board, its free leg and its locked legs are on the site. 14 days free, no card: see the board.