Top 3 closer than previous years,  Everton off to a great start.

It's always hard to bet against any team that can put out an average of 95 in attack and no main stat less than 93.  So let's look at the weakness of the top few sides.

Barcelona the one weakness is depth, they could realistically be fielding 87/86 rated players if they pick up a couple of injuries.

Bayern while still incredibly strong have a slight vunerability at the back if others choose to exploit it.

Chelsea are the most balanced side but also , just the weakest is midfield so could possesion be a problem.

Juve have the best depth but the poorest attack and defence of the top 4

Tottenham will struggle with the weak keeper they now have following the demise of Hart , others to look out for are Arsenal , will a one man band be enough .

Everton who should be in the relegation zone are currently up with the big boys.

Hard to see a way that Sevilla or Internacional will survive this year. Sevilla are the most vunerable at the back, and won't get the possesion needed to feed the forwards. Internacional ,while better at the back and up front seriously lack the depth to make any more progress. Man City really haven't  made much progress statistically lately and they have to be amongst the favourites to go down , where as promoted Leverkeusen should be comfortable enough to stay up.

Season 7 Division 5 value added.

3 Playoff teams sit high in the PVA,  Montpellier lead both categories.

Only in D5 could the winner of the league be 7th in PVA.  With no relegation it is possible to throw caution to the wind and that is what Montpellier did , charging into a playoff spot.  Dnipro in 2nd and Cologne in 3rd deserve the 2nd and 3rd PVA spots.  Flamengo and Bremen have the joint second VA of +11 and get into the playoffs.

Celta were the only original top 5 teams not to disappoint their fans and could not do any more, will next season be a repeat?

 Predicted 4th place team Twente were 19th and get the wooden spoon in both categories,  narrowly ahead of 2nd best West Ham who came 8th and Independiente who should have been on the edge of playoffs but came last.

Season 7 Division 4 value added.

Liege set the highest standard, but Sao Paulo get the highest VA.

Standard Liege the winners of D4 also get the highest PVA of +6 , remarkable for a playoff bound team. Sao Paulo arguably out did them , with automatic promotion and a VA of +12.

Marseille gained +9 VA and a playoff spot. Zagreb really pulled out the stops to get a VA of +5, the odds on last placed tean , secured their future in 15th.

Espanyol were a disapointing 8th, and got the lowest PVA and VA.  Monaco must be dissapointed at finishing only in the playoff but happier perhaps than Villa and Olympiacos who missed out.

Again relegation was sadly predictable with Besitkas, Dynamo Moscow, Stuttgart failing to improve on their starting position. Bordeaux must look to the future as a strong side were relegated.

Division 3 value added season 7.

A whole lot of Hertha for the others as Berlin storm to the top.

Disaster for Leicester and AZ.

Hertha really pulled out all the stop to finish top, they get the highest PVA of +4 ,  the highest VA goes to Galatasary at +10 in 7th , they were early season relegation fodder so a particular shout for them. The other playoff teams , Chievo and Spartak get the next 2 VA spots at +9. Newcastle and Lazio more or less did what was expected of them and gained promotion. 

Leicester were the notable top of the flops at -10 VA and the lowest PVA.  Narrowly ahead of Lyon who should have been promoted but avoided even the playoffs at -5 VA and -0.5PVA, tied with PSV who could still get promoted despite a below par season.

 Relegation was a bit less predictable but still 3 of the predicted lowest 5 were relegated.

SC Internacional lead the tables, with all the predicted top 7 massively underperforming.

If Division 1 is predictable , then Division 2 is the opposite.

SC Internacional finished 12 spots ahead of predicted and won the league, also with the highest PVA , Everton were also promoted automatically and were the highest originally rated team to do well.  Hoffenheim were also 12 places higher than predicted in 4th, but must go through the playoffs.  Sevilla another playoff team must also be proud of their performance.

Conversly the decline of AC Milan continues , should have bounced back but finished 10th,  with the worse PVA . Ajax who should also have gone up finished 11th , Southampton who should have been in the playoff spots got relegated and have the worse VA.  

The main similarity with D1 is that 3 out of the 4 relegated teams were the statistically the worse at the start of the season.

Division 1 value added.

Ok this is how it works. At the start of the season I worked out statistically where each team should finish. 

From that you deduct the finishing position to give the value added , VA. 

So if a team should have finished 8th but came 2nd they get a VA of +6.

However to take into account relevance of finishing position we then add 1 to that and divide by the finishing postion to get the positional value added PVA.

So in the above situation they would get a PVA of 3.5  ( 6+1 ) / 2.

So in Division 1 Roma get the highest PVA finishing 7 spots ahead of predicted, they also have the highest VA of _2 .  Barcelona & Bayern are second in PVA which shows the settled nature of the division.   Other notable performances are Porto , Schalke and Liverpool , who could have been in relegation trouble but all kept afloat.

Lowest PVA was Man Utd who just underperformed Tottenham who had the lowest net VA.  The relegation of Atletico Madrid is the stand out for me as the other relegated teams were those predicted at the start of the season , which begs an interesting question.

Division 5 Season 7  stats and facts.  Two teams should dominate but will they ?

At least for now my own Celta Vigo team sit top of the pile.  With a midfield worthy of D2 at least it is no surprise they haven't lost in any serious competition so far.  Weaker at the back but strong enough for this league. West Ham have a stronger defense but a weaker keeper which could be their downfall.

Basel have a more balanced approach with no overall weakness,  unlike Twente who load up the keeper and forward line at the expense of all else.

Dnipro should be an interesting team if they can get enough possession to do damage to the opposition.   River Plate 6th in the stats currently lead the division , a good start by a team good enough to challenge all season long. Lille in 2nd probably don't have what it takes ,mainly a weak defence is likely to let them down.

Rubin Kazan are in last place stats wise and are waiting for the Portuguese ratings to buff their keeper up to the 86 /87 he deserves , so expect them to do better. Augsburg, Bremen , Flamengo will suffer all year with their current set ups.

Division 5 is 2 pts per club weaker on average or roughly 1pt per player position only really the top half statisically should hope for promotion.

Division 4 in many ways better than Division 3.

With one exceptional club in AS Monaco who could succeed in D1 the average D4 side is as good as the average D3 side.

At least statistically speaking D4 has a better club than anything in D3 and D3 has a worse club than anything in D4. The world has gone mad!.

This should give you the idea that D4 is a wide open mad world where almost anyone who gets promoted could then go on to have a second good season , so probably D4 sides could see a double bounce as a quite reasonable prospect.

Monaco's big problem is a weak keeper for such a good side. They will prosper in D4 but everyone knows , bye pass the midfield lump the ball up to a big striker.  This leaves them vunerable to the likes of Espanyol, Anderlecht, Hellas and Aston Villa all who could challenge them.

 Espanyol are the most balanced side and should concede the least goals.

Anderlecht should expect a good finishing position but do they have the depth for a full season push.  Their Belgium rivals don't have that issue but a weak offense is likely to be their achilles heel.

There are a number of relegation possibilities all the way up to Bordeaux should be concerned.  Zagreb are strong enough at the back , but where will the goals come from,  Stuttgart doing well for now but lack depth and have defensive frailties.  Dynamo Moscow more than any team can not afford a single injury without the team suffering.

So finally D3 and D4 seem to have merged ratings rise, at least for now,  however some old timers may see their last few season in D4 and the rating drop will come sooner or maybe much further in the season.

Division 3 stats and facts, are you the best or worst at being average?

PSV and Lazio head and shoulders above the rest.

Good news for those in division 3 , there are probably 10 or more clubs down to Shaktar who if they were promoted wouldn't get relegated straight away. A 90 rated attacking line is sure to do well against the generally weaker defences and keepers of D3, the only way to keep them at bay would be to deny possesion. This gives PSV a huge advantage as they should also get most of the ball. Only Lazio and Lyon can match them in that respect.

These should be the promoted teams with Hertha , who have another 90 attacking team on their tails.

Leicester , Newcastle, CSKA, Hamburg all very similar teams , who could push for a play off spot.

At the wrong end there is a fairly steep decline. We see 87 or even 86's in defence and if this is combined with a weak midfield their is only one way this will go. The two Turkish sides Cruziero and Swansea look hot to drop. With the exception of Galatasaray they fill the lower 4 positions along with Boca Juniors who are rated 5th from last in any case.

Is there an impossible gap between D2 and D1. The stats suggest yes. Can a top manager prove otherwise.

To not get instantly relegated the ETOT, the experimental ratings total in D1 is around 224.5

As you can see from the table below only AC Milan and Leverkeusen have a strong enough squad to survive more than one season. This sets up the dilema, get promotion get the sack next year..

In any case neither of these teams has had a great start.

Leverkeusen and AC Milan should be there or there abouts at the end of the season and in theory 1 / 2. Leverkeusen lack depth and have a shaky defence but in every other aspect have a great starting 11.

Milan are steady throughout and should be hard to break down by any team.

Ajax , Inter and Southampton are more or less AC Milan clones and except for Inter, none have had a great start , is there a shift to individual performance in the game dynamics or perhaps morale is more important.

Valencia should push for a higher place but goalkeeping has always been a weak point. Giroud has never really done the business for them and perhaps he should be sold on.

Everton have a well balanced side and depth which has set them off on the right course during the early part of the season.

At the wrong end the lower 4 teams dip below 220,  each has an obvious exploitable fault. Sporting the keeper, Sunderland the midfield,  Sampdoria the keeper and AS St Etienne the defence. Now there may be transfers coming in but Sunderland will stuggle for possession and that seems to count for so much .