Will the big 3 return to the big time? will it be a German top 3 ?

Atletico are the obvious favourites, with Southampton , Schalke and Leverkusen close behind.

O.K second division, so second point to note.  Some managers have commented that they have built their squad up through skilled trading or scouting and then get penalised in the value added againsts managers who do little or nothing. 

Well that is a good point, but to do that we would need to look at squad value increase or otherwise over the course of the season.

Anyway back to the league in hand.

Atletico and Southampton can push out a full 90 rated squad and would sit happily in division 1.  Other than Schalke and Leverkeusen , all the other teams in D2 would be relegation fodder, which is an interesting developement. Probably a result of the sorting hat in action. 

It will be interesting to see how Wolfsburg fair. A weaker keeper and no depth, but the potential to cope with the big boys in the short term

Zenit and Inter have the top keepers and should be able to challenge for a playoff spot.

Of the mid table pack Benfica and Fenerbache have a powerful attack.

Spartak and current leaders Internacional should be relegation bound.  Swansea have a potent enough forward line to avoid the drop.  There is good strength in depth in this league and any of the 87 rated teams in the top 18 category, should be able to play to their strengths all season.

As for my own team. I expect a tough start to the season but then I hope to challenge for the playoff by the end of the season.

Who is top of the pile and who can over perform.

Have Barcelona sacrificed depth for youth?

First of all, nothing here is opinion. I don't believe or predict that AC Milan will finish last. This is just raw stats with no opinion attached.  

Barcelona still look like the favourites. Real, Bayern and Juventus should snap at their heels.  Man Utd sit ahead of a more evenly packed mid table crowd from Chelsea down to Dortmund.  Valencia and Dortmund probably have the depth to push on late in the season. The opposite is true of  the first relegation favourites Napoli, Borussia and Porto, plenty of strength , little depth. wisely Ajax and Everton have a stronger squad, to survive the inevitable relegation battle. AC Milan and Mr Beddows hold up the statistical table. Can he beat his value added score from last season?

Who is the top of the stats and facts this year... will it be Mr Beddows or has the Dinosaur beaten him to it..

Firstly. The stats and facts ,despite certain people who are a little hard of understanding commenting otherwise, merely predict what should happen according to the raw data. Obviously that takes no account of manager skill, I could in future seasons factor that in , based on previous seasons value added but that is bit too much like hard work.

So on raw or should I say roar ! value added score.

AC Milan get + 14

SC Internacional +9

Boca +12

Sunderland +10

Sporting + 9

Sassuolo +10

Sampdoria +12

Santos + 8

So clearly on raw score AC Milan did a fantastic job.

If we look at skewed value added which includes a measure of success , rather than merely achievement.

AC Milan +2.33

Sporting + 9

Hellas + 6

Sassuolo +5

Sampdoria +3

Dynamo +7 

Santos +3

So we have a clear winner , ahem, which is Sporting Lisbon

 At the other end, we really need to look hard at D4 and 5

West Ham at -17 VA, and Twente -15 VA , with Monaco -0.95 skew.  

Must do better, look what you could have won!

Dynamo Moscow win the league and get the highest rating, credit goes to Santos for a good season.  Twente and even 5th place Torino fail to impress again.

Controversial a 5th place team lowest in the ranking? Well not considering the side they have. An 89 keeper and 90 rated forward , should have been a walk in the park and not a blunder through the play offs.

Hellas and Sassuolo lead the charge. Monaco and West Ham some of the worst performing in all 4 leagues.

Again a good example of where a skew works well . Sampdoria have the highest raw VA at +12 but in all honesty 4th place hasn't won them any prizes yet!.  Hellas and Sassuolo gain auto promotion and deserve to be higher rated.

At the other end 3rd place pick West Ham finish last but was that worse than easy 1st pick Monaco finishing 12th with the side they had. Worth discussing.

Sporting Lisbon's fantastic run to the title gives them the biggest Skewed value average so far, Boca , so near so far at the moment.  PSV fall well short of the mark.

Internacional get the biggest gain, but Everton clinching the title gets the overall award. Shaktar and Inter Milan the biggest disappointments.

AC Milan out perform the rest, Napoli put in a good turn.

PSG and Man City the worse performers

This year I will rate teams by raw and skewed value added, which divides value added by finishing position. This works particularly well for judging performance above the level expected but less well for -ve scores .

Difficult to look past the super team of Torino, so who will finish second.

You could easily argue that D5 follows the pattern of D1,2,4 only broken by the free spirited thinkers of D3 , that there must be 2 teams much better than all the rest. Is this some kind of evolutionary state or just coincidence?

Torino have a side capable of winning D3 or 4 , and more than capable of surviving in D2 . Should be a walk in the park.  Celta Vigo are a very different team, they love their midfield and use it to gain plenty of possession, even in games they have lost, they get 50% more than their opponents . These two teams should top the division or at very least gain an easy promotion.

Twente are a similar team to Celta but with a more attacking flare, in may ways Celtic match them swapping a stronger keeper for a weaker defence.  The currently under performing Espanyol look to offer a more balanced approach, but that doesn't seem to be working at the moment. You probably need 87.0 plus to survive D4, which would mean any team down to Cologne could look to a play off spot. Cologne could well be the big shock team , so long as they don't get any injuries.

As there is no relegation, one looks at the likely teams for  the sack race. Brugge and Partizan lack depth, Brugge have a decent midfield and so should be able to grind out draws and wins , that Partizan won't be able to convert long term. It will also be interesting to see how Bremen and Anderlecht cope long term minus an 87 keeper, there are alternatives at externals, so I would sacrifice a player to pick one up now , it could mean Bremen pushing for the playoffs and at worse Anderlecht being secure.

While I am at it there are some really odd teams in this division, Can't understand why you would need 11 attacking midfielders in a squad of 50 but hey , who am I to know, I suppose that is the wild wild west of D5.

There should be two teams already dominating this division. Monaco and Olympiacos.  While not doing badly, they are 5 points away from where they should be.

Division 4 too a certain extent follows the pattern in divisions 1 and 2 . Two teams much better than the rest with a pack of decent teams following on.

It isn't hard to see Monaco as out and out favourites for this division  but a weak keeper lets them down and leaves them vunerable. Sure they have a 90 rated front line but if you have an 89 rated front line and an 89 rated keeper you can give as good as you get. Olympiacos have exactly that but have a slight weakness in the back line.

Then a whole pack of team will be looking at the final promotion and play off spot.  West Ham look favoured but AZ and St Etienne have stronger keepers even if they have a weaker defence. 

In fact statistically you would need around an average of 87.2 to survive in D3 so we could go down as far as Hoffenheim to look for a possible play off team. The big shock could be Dinamo Zagreb who have gone for strength over depth. A risky tactic but it could pay off in an otherwise weaker division. 

Chievo on the other hand could struggle to get any where near their 5th spot with the joint worse keeper in the league. 

At the wrong end it really is tight. Any team from Sassuolo down are possible relegation candidates. All four relegation spots are filled by teams in the lowest 8 statistically. 

River Plate also try strength over depth but so far it isn't paying off, as one key injury leaves them vunerable . Dnipro are going great guns at the moment, especially since they have had no easy fixtures.  I can't see Montpellier staying up as they have much the weakest starting team and their compatriots Bordeaux aren't far behind.