The World has gone mad ! , no not what you are thinking Division 4 is almost as highly rated than Division 3 really!

While only marginally so, the average Division 3 club is only slightly higher rated than the average Division 4 team. 

If we take the average survival rating in D3 as around 86.5 this would lead to virtually the whole of D4 being eligible for promotion.  So what has happened?

Well the simplest and perhaps crudest answer is the bulge factor in D3. There are 2 seasons worth of teams on the slide and 2 seasons worth of teams from divisions below which is half the league in  that division. In addition as stated last time, d3 managers seem to be willing to sacrifice more , while D4 managers maybe are playing the long game. 

In addition one has to look at why Dnipro  one of the potential best team in D4 are 15th and Cologne the potential worse team top.  You can draw your own conclusions from that.

D4 also suffers from  the recycle factor of D5 , ie teams can't exit D5 so teams will get relegated and promoted too and from ,probably the better teams , so the overall rating may be less variable.

Anyway enough conjecture what do the stats say. Torino should take a top 3 spot with little problem once they get their act together, the best attack and keeper should be a unbeatable combination. Chievo should snatch another spot and then  there are then a whole bunch of almost identical teams ,  From Dnipro - Lille ., not even 1/6 of a rating point between them , with deep squads.  This will tend to mean the better managers should progress .  There is no big tail to this group and realistically , down to Dynamo Moscow could get a play off spot. 

It would be cruel to call any team relegation favourites, as probably favourites Cologne are top. They can't keep it together with such a small squad , can they ?

Well lets see.

	Gk	Def	Mid	Att	Top15	Top21	Average
Torino	89	89	88	90	87	85	88.00
Chievo Verona	88	88	88	89	87	86	87.67
Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk	88	87	88	88	87	86	87.33
West Ham United	88	88	88	88	87	85	87.33
Stuttgart	88	87	88	88	87	86	87.33
Hamburg	88	87	88	89	86	85	87.17
AZ	89	87	88	88	86	85	87.17
Villarreal CF	88	89	88	87	86	85	87.17
Lille OSC	89	87	88	88	86	85	87.17
Sampdoria	88	88	87	88	86	85	87.00
Montpellier HSC	87	87	88	88	86	85	86.83
Hellas Verona	87	87	87	88	86	86	86.83
Málaga CF	87	87	88	86	86	85	86.50
Atalanta BC	88	87	88	88	86	82	86.50
Dynamo Moskva	87	87	87	87	86	85	86.50
River Plate	88	87	88	87	85	83	86.33
Sassuolo	88	87	87	88	85	83	86.33
São Paulo FC	87	87	88	87	85	83	86.17
Feyenoord	88	86	87	87	84	84	86.00
Cologne	88	87	88	88	84	79	85.67

 

 

Stuck in the middle with you !

The league where there has to be a price to pay.

 Almost half of the managers in Division 3 have decided to sacrifice depth of squad for a strong starting team.

You would expect those managers to have made a good start and to a large extent they have.
However as the season progresses 1 or 2 injuries, rating changes or suspensions will start to hit home meaning blips along the road.

Monaco and Marseille have the strongest overall squads if not the best starting teams, they haven't had the greatest starts but are still within distance of the top contenders.  Bilbao , Besitkas and current leaders Aston Villa also have strong balanced teams with a good depth to the squad. Ready reckoning suggest you need an average rating of 87 to gain promotion. This gives over half the teams a fighting chance.  Of the teams who don't have a great deal of depth Genoa or Stoke look best placed to gain an automatic spot if all goes well.

Then we have the enigma of Leicester. Never has it been so easy to sit on a team of players and wait for them to rise. They will do as well as their team does in real life at the start of the next premier league season , they could well gain automatic promotion or quickly fall by the wayside. 
Of the relegation candidates there is little to choose between them , although Bordeaux have the better keeper , which could be crucial. 

Division 3 soon becomes a division to pass through on the way up or down and naturally has the biggest through put of teams. What has occured already is that with 6 better teams coming down from above and 6 improving teams coming up from below there are a dozen or so teams more than able to fight out for the elusive promotion spot, this makes it increasingly tough for the lesser lights to pick up the scraps and avoid relegation.

	Gk	Def	Mid	Att	Top15	Top21	Average
AS Monaco	88	89	89	90	87	86	88.17
Olympique Marseille	91	88	89	89	86	85	88.00
Athletic Club	90	88	88	88	87	86	87.83
Besiktas JK	88	87	88	89	87	87	87.67
Aston Villa	88	88	87	88	87	86	87.33
Genoa CFC	89	88	89	90	86	82	87.33
Stoke City	89	88	88	89	87	82	87.17
Hoffenheim	88	87	87	88	86	86	87.00
AS Saint-Etienne	89	87	88	87	86	85	87.00
SC Internacional	88	87	88	88	86	85	87.00
Swansea City	88	87	88	89	86	83	86.83
Udinese Calcio	87	87	87	88	87	85	86.83
Sunderland	87	87	87	87	86	86	86.67
Leicester City	89	88	88	90	84	80	86.50
PSV	87	88	87	88	85	84	86.50
Southampton	89	89	87	89	85	80	86.50
Cruzeiro	87	87	87	87	86	85	86.50
Crystal Palace	87	87	88	87	85	82	86.00
Girondins Bordeaux	88	87	88	88	85	80	86.00
Galatasaray SK	87	88	88	88	84	80	85.83

Division 2 the edge of greatness or a fall into darkness.

Four defensive teams lead the pack.

If you take 90 as the gold standard there is one team a cut above the rest which is clearly Tottenham who should easily gain promotion. They should fear no team and with strength in depth should put a good cup campaign together.  Roma should also push them hard but lack a little in depth ,which deep in the season will count against them.  After the obvious 2 favourites a pack of others have little to split them.  Zenit or Everton should fancy the 3rd spot. 

Ajax and CSKA may well finish higher than predicted if they can keep a full team out most games.

However to secure promotion and your place in D1 you really need to top 89 as your average here which means the rest really have some building to do if they are to go up and stay up.

Spartak are off to a flying start but with a weak keeper that won't last .  Of the relegation favourites  Lokomotiv have the strength in depth to avoid the drop where as Benfica look well adrift of the rest. 

	GK	Def	Mid	Att	Top15	Top21	Ave
Tottenham Hotspur	92	90	92	90	88	87	89.83
AS Roma	90	89	92	91	88	84	89.00
Monchengladbach	90	89	90	91	87	86	88.83
Internazionale	91	90	89	90	87	86	88.83
Zenit	90	89	89	89	88	87	88.67
AC Milan	89	89	90	90	88	85	88.50
Everton	90	90	90	89	87	85	88.50
Sevilla	88	89	89	90	88	86	88.33
Ajax	91	89	89	89	87	84	88.17
CSKA Moskva	90	88	89	89	87	85	88.00
Shakhtar Donetsk	89	89	90	89	87	83	87.83
Olympique Lyonnais	88	89	88	88	87	86	87.67
Boca Juniors	88	87	89	88	86	86	87.33
Wolfsburg	89	87	89	89	87	83	87.33
Spartak Moskva	86	88	88	88	87	86	87.17
Newcastle United	88	87	89	89	86	84	87.17
Sporting CP	88	87	88	88	86	84	86.83
FC Basel	87	87	87	89	86	85	86.83
Lokomotiv Moskva	87	88	88	89	87	82	86.83
SL Benfica	88	87	88	89	85	83	86.67

 

The true state of Division 1 in the Top 100.

 Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern top the list once again.


 The top 3 suggests a similar result to last season  Barcelona perhaps lack a little strength in depth , with Real performing better in that respect Bayern have a more of a problem with a weaker if improving keeper.
Juventus down to Chelsea should be able to field a team of 90+ players most weeks, have Chelsea decided to go for broke this season , the stats suggest so, short term gain could mean long term pain.   In the lower reaches the teams tend to become less balanced favouring an attacking or defensive approach.  Of the relegation contenders. Dortmund should start well but the fade.  Leverkeusen have a good keeper if they wish to play the defensive game.  Fiorentina look set for the chop, but the manager has built a deeper team this season and it will be interesting to see how that works for him.

	Gk	Def	Mid	Att	Top15	Top21
Barcelona	96	93	94	97	88	85	92.17
Bayern	89	93	94	98	93	84	91.83
Real Madrid	92	93	94	94	90	87	91.67
Juventus	94	92	92	92	89	88	91.17
Arsenal	92	92	91	92	89	88	90.67
Manchester United	94	90	92	92	89	85	90.33
Paris Saint-Germain	90	91	92	94	89	85	90.17
SSC Napoli	90	90	92	92	89	87	90
Manchester City	91	90	91	93	88	87	90
Liverpool	90	90	92	91	88	86	89.5
Chelsea	93	90	91	94	87	82	89.5
SS Lazio	89	89	90	93	88	87	89.33
Fenerbahçe SK	89	89	90	91	88	88	89.17
Valencia CF	90	90	91	90	89	85	89.17
FC Porto	91	89	90	91	88	86	89.17
Atlético Madrid	91	90	89	90	88	87	89.17
Dortmund	89	91	92	92	87	82	88.83
Leverkusen	90	89	91	90	87	85	88.67
Schalke	89	90	90	91	88	83	88.5
ACF FIORENTINA	88	89	88	90	87	86	88

 

At the start of the season all clubs were rated according to the average of the main positions NOT cash value.

Then the predicted finishing position was calculated, with some minor human input to avoid skewing , i.e. a one of anomaly which affected the overall good / bad rating of a team ( this was only used in 3 or 4 teams )

So taking my own team Fiorentina were the 17th rated team. I finished 11th so I added 6 places in value.


AC Milan were 13th rated , they finished 18th so they get - 5.

Now I know that the highest rated team can never add any value or the lowest rated lose any. In addition it could well be better for a 6th place team to finish 2nd than a 19th rated team to finish 15th.

Not surprisingly the biggest variation came with lowest divisions.

Hope this helps

Division 5

		VA
Hetha Berlin	1	-3.00
Sao Paulo	16	-3.00
Stuttgart	13	0.00
Villlareal	5	4.00
Dynamo Kiev	18	-9.00
Olympiacos	4	-3.00
Flamengo	3	-8.00
Club Bruge	11	-3.00
Anderlecht	19	1.00
Feyenord	7	8.00
Santos	9	5.00
Dinamo Zagreb	15	-4.00
Celtic	8	6.00
Bremen	12	-5.00
Standard Liege	2	3.00
Rubin Kazan	14	3.00
Augsburg	6	-3.00
Partizan	10	1.00
Independiente	17	9.00
FC Twente	20	-2.00

Pre	Acc	VA
Southamoton	1	1	0
West Ham	2	12	-10
Dynamo Moscow	3	10	-7
Genoa	4	2	2
Malaga	5	4	-1
Torino	6	5	1
Udinese	7	7	0
Montpellier	8	15	-7
Celta Vigo	9	18	-9
West Brom	10	19	-9
AZ	11	9	2
Dnipro	12	13	1
Atalanta	13	6	7
River Plate	14	11	3
Sc Internacional	15	3	12
Cologne	16	8	8
Espanyol	17	17	0
Chievo	18	14	4
Levante	19	20	1
Hellas Verona	20	16	4

Best performance in D4 was SC Internacional by a country mile,  credit must also goto Atalanta for a great 6th spot.

The big let downs West Broms and Ham and Celta Vigo

Division 3 

 

Much bigger swings in D3. Some massive fails by Hamburg and Lille who should have been top half or even promotion candidates. Great performances by PSV, Bordeaux and Basel who must be a favourite for manager of the year.

 

										VA
Pre Acc VA Monaco 1 14 -13 Ajax 2 1 1 Shaktar 3 7 -4 Marseille 4 5 -1 Hamburg 5 17 -12 Lille 6 18 -12 Aston Villla 7 4 -3 CSKA 8 2 6 Swansea 9 9 0 Besitkas 10 11 -1 Sampdoria 11 20 -9 Leiscester 12 6 6 Sassuolo 13 19 -6 Stoke 14 12 2 Cruziero 15 13 2 Hoffenheim 16 16 0 Crystal Palace 17 15 2 Basel 18 3 15 PSV 19 8 11 Bordeaux 20 10 10

Division 2 

 

Galatasaray are the big losers, with Everton and Spartak defying the odds

Pre Acc VA Dortmund 1 1 0 PSG 2 4 -2 Napoli 3 2 1 Schalke 4 3 -1 Tottenham 5 10 -5 AS Roma 6 7 1 Wolfsburg 7 5 2 Zenit 8 13 -5 Galatasaray 9 19 -10 Borussia Moenchengladbach 10 11 -1 Newcastle 11 9 2 Everton 12 6 6 Sporting 13 16 -3 Spartak 14 8 6 Athletic Bilbao 15 20 -5 Lokomtiv Moscow 16 12 4 Sunderland 17 18 -1 Boca Juniors 18 15 3 Benfica 19 14 -5 St Etienne 20 17 3

Division 1

 

So the best 3 managers in D1 are Porto , Fenerbache and Fiorentina

The worse 3 AC Milan , Inter and Liverpool

Full Pos Value added Barcelona 1 1 0 Bayern 2 2 0 Real Madrid 3 3 0 Atletico 4 9 5 Juventus 5 4 1 Chelsea 6 7 -1 Man Utd 7 6 -1 Arsenal 8 8 0 Man City 9 12 -3 Inter 10 17 -7 Lazio 11 14 -3 Porto 12 5 7 AC Milan 13 18 -5 Liverpool 14 16 -2 Leverkusen 15 15 0 Valencia 16 13 3 Fiorentina 17 11 6 Fenerbarche 18 10 8 Lyon 19 19 0 Sevilla 20 20 0