Borussia M, well deserved leaders PVA, just ahead of Fiorentina who had a great +9 VA

 Some other great performances Sporting +6 VA, Sampdoria +5, Genoa +0.8 PVA.

At the wrong end,  Inter get the lowest PVA as, they should have finished 1st, narrowly above Benfica who had the lowest VA at -12.

Other poor performances from , Everton and Lazio

Value added Season 6 D1.

So below is a table with the raw value added and positional value added based on the actual finish.

Porto had the best PVA finishing 6 places above expected , with Barcelona the best PVA for winnning the title.

Liverpool come 2nd in PVA and VA with Man City scoring highly in both.

At the other end. PSG were worse in both categories having a miserable season all round. Real Madrid and Tottenham also poor all round.

Division 5 Season 6 stats and fact , still the only way is up.

Monaco should go up,  West Brom are rebuilding, what does the future hold for the foundation of the Top 100.

Monaco Twente and Espanyol sit head and shoulders above the opposition.  

The presence of Cech obviously biases the stats of Twente somewhat. The alternative system takes account of this, and sees them as 5th overall.

However it will be hard for most teams to get past such a high rated keeper.  Torino and Udinese have potent enough attacks, and that could be key in a division with weaker than average keepers if you exclude Cech.

The variation show maybe any team down to West Ham could get auto promotion , with Dnipro or Flamengo having a playoff chance.

With little to worry about other than the sack race lower down. West Brom are an unknown quantity, if they can rebuild then fine but can they give other teams a 9 ,12, or 15 point headstart, Augsburg potential the next weakest have had a decent start. 6 points in the bag is a premium in this league.

You need 87.2 average to survive D4 so that could be a target for the West Brom boss.  10 or more clubs have this , so any could aim for promotion.

Division 4  Season 6 stats and facts.  Twice a win a away from Division 2, will Leicester bounce back or do Celta Vigo have a cunning plan?

89 Keeper , 89 front line,  should be enough to push Leicester back from where they came, and early season form backs that up.  Basel  have much the same arrangement, but with a bit less depth , not such a good start for them , which they can't really afford as they may fade.  Lowest placed team Liege should finish 3rd on the main rankings,  although the alternate prediction system sees Olympiacos placing higher which is backed up early doors.

Looking up one division , you need around 87.3 to survive D3,  which bodes well for the majority of teams , showing the gap between D4 an D3 is perhaps not that large. The deviation shows any team down to Crystal Palace has a realistic play off shout.

Celta Vigo have a midfield heavy side, this pushes them higher up in the alternative ranking system, although it isn't helping much at the moment.

At the trap door end despite a good keeper, Zagreb are the weakest team in the league statistically. Dynamo Moscow and Bordeaux have some strength in depth, which could help them as the season goes on. Again the huge deviations in this division see any team up to Atalanta at threat of relegation, and with only half a point average difference between teams from Sau Paulo to Atalanta it is too tight to call. 

Malaga could be the type of team to put together a good cup run , should they wish, without changing their prospects in the league much.

The mad world of Division 3, stats and facts season 6.

Will PSV live up to expectations this season ?

PSV and argueably Sevilla can put out the strongest starting 11, with Olympic Lyon not far behind. Again looking up 1 division PSV would be challenging for a play off space , so this should be a relative doddle for them.

Lyon and Sevilla have the most attacking options, but Sevilla have a weakness between the sticks, which never helps long term.

Injury free Celtic could also challenge for the top spot. With a wild variation in performance vs stats in D3 you could look down as far as St Etienne or even Marseille for the eventual winners or even to Besitkas or Villa for a playoff spot.

The experimental ranking system indeed shows that Marseille or Villa could be dark horses for a play off run.

To survive in D2 you need around 88.10 which would put the cut off between Newcastle and Celtic , lower than that and you will be rejoining your long lost friends.

At the relegation end Chievo , Galatasary and Cruziero look set for the drop.  Galatasary and Cruziero have a weak keeper, lack depth,  Chievo are desperately weak up top and could find reinforcements in the open market.

While the regular stats put Spatak in the 4th drop spot, the adjusted stats show that Swansea may be more likely to drop, which is backed up by the first couple of games.

I fancy Besitkas for a good cup run, if that is what takes their fancy.

Season 6 Division 2 Stats and facts.

Inter Milan should dominate their Italian rivals in this division, with the strong German duo close behind.

Again , a quick note, none of this is my opinion or a reflection on any manager and their skill in making a team or running a team, just raw data crunched and spat out by excel.

It is always worth looking at the division above when considering , who could and who should be promoted. 

You will need around 89.4 to survive in D1. So realistically only the top 5 have what it takes, the rest if they get promoted , will in all probability get relegated again. 

That being said D2 is a slightly wilder place than D1 and there is always a bigger variation in results.

Inter are solid 90 throughout,  only Southampton can match that, but they have much less strength in depth.  Dortmund and Leverkeusen lay either side of their Portuguese rivals in Benfica, who can put out a stronger starting 11 if needed but lack in depth also.

Genoa have a potent attack and the alternative rating system shows them pushing for the playoff spot. 

Recall that with a SD of around 6 any team down to Lazio could push for a playoff spot and any team up to Schalke are at risk of relegation. 

The stats show that CSKA, Sassuolo and Athletic club making the return journey to D3 quicker than they would have liked.  Only Sampdoria from the promoted quartet seem to have a good enough squad to survive.  Fenerbache  who survived on goal difference last season may not be so lucky this year.

It seems to be getting harder and harder each year to survive in D2 with 46 points needed last season. 

Division 1 Stats and facts.

Barcelona should top the table,  Juve to grab 2nd. Plus new experimental prediction.

Barcelona have the stongest starting selection but as last season lack depth which ultimately cost them the title.  Juve and Bayern are closely matched. Chelsea also adopt the Barca approach of strength but less depth.

Ultimately the standard deviation approach suggests that no team lower than PSG have any realistic hope for the title.

PSG and Real Madrid will be looking for a rapid increase in keeper rating and thus may finish much higher than suggested.

At the other end , it could be a season of suffering for the promoted Villareal , Sunderland and Wolfsburg. Ajax who narrowly avoided relegation are once again in the lowest 4 at the moment.

Any team up to Napoli must consider themselves relegation possibles , teams above Man City should be safe.

The last 2 columns on the table are a rating system based on the relative effect of GK, Def, Mid, ATT , Top18 .  This was calculated looking at the difference between predicted and real positions last year.

There isn't that much difference.  It does suggest Bayern are much closer to Barca than otherwise predicted  ETOt is the rating calculation, which I'm not going to explain yet , as it needs tweeking and may have to be done division by division. EPr is the experimental prediction.

Value added, how varied are the 5 divisions.

What does standard deviation show.

For the less mathematically incline the standard deviation is a way of measuring the average difference from the mean, with big differences counting slightly more. 

Around 70% of teams will finish within 1SD of their finishing position , 95% of teams should finish within 2sd.

So lets say your predicted position was 10th, and the SD was 3

There would be a 70% chance of you finishing between 7 and 13 and a 95% chance you will finish between 4th - 16th, i.e. there is very little chance you should gain automatic relegation or promotion.

So looking at each division

Division 1: +/- 3.0

Division 2: +/- 6.6

Division 3: +/- 7.8

Division 4: +/- 7.0

Division 5: +/- 5.8

So what does this mean. Division 1 and Division 5 are the less varied in terms of performance.  For example if you are ranked 20th the chance is you will finish no higher than 17th and definitely no higher than 14th no matter what you do.

Why is this, well over 5 seasons the cream has risen to the top and the other stuff has stayed or sunk to it's true level. 

Division 3 remains the melting pot for the top 100,  better teams going up, worse teams going down, but hope for all.

The 8th placed team could well finish top in D3 ,the 20th placed team could finish 4th..

There is a strong arguement to use the standard deviation to work out true value added across all 5 divisions.  This perhaps put the relative performances of Napoli and Juventus in D1 into true perspective.

Division 5 season 5 value added.

The curse of the VA strikes again as the best VA team Flamengo fail in the playoffs. Great performance by Hertha Berlin and Malaga.

Moving from play off contenders to league winners bodes well for Hertha Berlin next season,  Malaga pulled off a similar trick to finish second and 2nd in PVA. Flamengo top at VA and 3rd at PVA failed to make the final push . 

 A good year also for WBA with a high VA of  +7

Levante gained that promotion spot , yet have a very low VA and PVA, will this cause them problems next season?

Ok so no relegation but -11 VA for Torino and - 10 for river plate , see them with the lowest VA and PVA. Independiente with -5 VA finish 18th, with play off contenders Cologne having a worse -7 VA

Division 4 season 5 value added

Perhaps some controversial positions here. Hoffenheim top the table , ahead of run away winners Celtic.

There are definite similarities with D3 here, with the exeception of Celtic who ran away with the league in most respects.

However Hoffenheim over came 5 potentially better sides to come 2nd and only 1pt short of Celtic in the end, so perhaps they should top the PVA table. Chievo likewise move from 12th to 3rd and also gain promotion.  Like D3 the team with the best VA failed to gain promotion from the playoffs , leaving Dynamo Kiev in D4 for another season.

 Dyanmo Moscow on +9 VA  another great achievement,.

 AS Monaco are worse for VA, PVA and quite rightly relegated to D5,  Olympiacos who failed in the playoff in 7th got the 2nd lowest PVA, Udinese on -11 VA also got relegated.