How to read a player trend card

Here is what every part of a real FootyMetrics trend card is actually showing, in the order it appears on the card.

What a trend card shows

The top row has the player's photo, name (linking to their player page), team and position. If the player has been out of the team recently or hasn't started lately, a small icon flags that next to their name. If their output in this stat has clearly shifted up or down across the matches shown, an arrow icon marks that too. To the right sits a confidence score badge and, where odds are available, a dropdown showing the best price from a supported bookmaker for this exact market and line.

Below that is the market and line, for example "Shots on target, Over 1.5", next to four stat boxes: HIT, P90, AVG and RATE. Under those, a row shows how many recent matches the card covers, any badges narrowing that sample, a copy button for the raw figures, and a share button. Then comes the history strip itself, a run of boxes, one per match. The card finishes with a link to the player's next fixture, their lineup status, and a comparison of their own average against the upcoming opponent's average allowed for that stat.

What HIT and RATE actually mean

HIT and RATE are the same underlying number shown two ways. HIT is a count, for example 6/8, meaning the player cleared the line in 6 of the most recent 8 qualifying matches. RATE is that same fraction shown as a rounded percentage, so 6/8 shows as 75%. Both sit next to two other figures: P90, the player's average for the stat per 90 minutes played, and AVG, their plain average across the matches shown. FootyMetrics talks about hit rate the same way across the site, as a rate over a specific recent window of matches rather than an all-time career number, and that is exactly what these two figures show on the card.

The history strip: one box per real match

Under the headline figures is the actual evidence: a strip of boxes, most recent match first. Each box shows the competition the match was played in, the player's value for that stat in that match, the minutes they played and the position, and the opponent with a home or away tag. The colour of the value tells you whether that match cleared the line, a plain colour for a clear miss, a highlighted colour for a match that hit. Boxes inside the window the HIT and RATE figures are calculated from carry a small underline, older boxes beyond that window are dimmed, so you can see at a glance which matches are actually driving the headline numbers rather than reading the strip as one undifferentiated block. Where there are more than eight matches to show, the strip scrolls sideways rather than shrinking every box to fit.

This is the part worth actually reading rather than skipping to the percentage. Two players can show the same RATE with very different underlying patterns, for example a steady run of matches just over the line against three big performances and several near misses. The strip is where that difference shows up.

The confidence score

In the top right of the card is a confidence score from 0 to 100, colour banded from red at the low end through amber to green at the high end. FootyMetrics states plainly what this number is: it is scored by FootyMetrics' own algorithm for how strong the data behind the trend is, and a higher score means stronger supporting data. It is not a stated probability that the pick will land, and this page does not claim it is one.

Filter badges under the strip

Small badges can appear next to "Last N" above the history strip. An orange badge marks a trend scoped to home matches only or away matches only. A green "Started" badge marks a trend built only from matches the player started, with substitute appearances excluded. A gray badge with a league logo marks a trend scoped to a single competition, excluding cup, continental and other fixtures. These badges are indicators of how the sample behind the card has been narrowed, not controls you change on the card itself; the settings that produce them live in the filters on the surrounding trends page.

Reading a strong trend against a shaky one

The RATE percentage on its own does not tell you how much weight to give a trend. A player who has cleared the line in 3 of their last 4 matches shows a high rate on a small sample, while a player at a similar rate over 8 matches has a longer run of evidence behind the same headline number. Checking HIT alongside RATE, and glancing at the spread in the history strip rather than only the percentage, is the quickest way to separate a genuinely settled trend from a short hot streak. For the underlying reasoning on why a small number of matches carries much less weight than a larger one, see variance and sample size.

The filter badges matter here too. A trend badged "Home only" tells you nothing about how the player has performed away, and a trend badged to a single league excludes any cup or continental matches entirely. Reading the badges alongside the headline numbers gives a fuller picture than the percentage alone.