Can West Brom beat the Mo Salah led Boca team, the stats say yes.

Boca with Salah were nearly untouchable in D4 but D3 is a different matter. West Brom should win the division the strongest team in 3 of the categories and 2^nd best in attack.  Boca’s season in 2^nd spot rests in 1 man, a few injuries and they would be a mid table outfit at best.  Flamengo in 3^rd are a solid outfit 90 keeper and 90 attack will be hard for most D3 teams to cope with.  Zenit in 4^th in the stats have a strong midfield but are they too weak at the back to cope with some of the mighty attackers? Seville in 5^th are not a Boca clone with much more depth than most teams.  Swansea in 6^th have such a strong attack and midfield combo but recently defensive teams such as West Ham have been favoured.  Can Sampdoria match the expected 9^th spot with their strong attack but weak keeper?

As you would only need 220.5 to survive D2 promotion is a realistic prospect down to at least Sunderland in 11^th spot.

Relegation , Schalke look likely to suffer yet another drop unless something is done, while last season was a bit mad a general cut off of 219 from relegation could be applied.  This leave the 2 Turkish teams who are near identical in stats battling Dnipro who so often over perform and Fiorentina .

As for the A.I. it sees Sevilla gaining a 2^nd promotion instead of Flamengo, Sunderland are expect to do somewhat better but the relegation teams still sit firm.

Sporting the clear favourites.

A team that should be mid table in D1 should romp to the title with room to spare. They can only realistically be beaten in the keeper position but should not have a problem. Then things get much closer. Genoa just in 2^nd spot maybe a little weaker in defence but still a tough all round team. Leverkusen are a more defensive outfit but maybe lack a little depth.

Man Utd are in 4^th spot but will the keeper be a real weakness.  Real Madrid will run the top teams close with that potent attack  but as is true of Cruziero perhaps a little weak lower down the order.

Liege are a classic top and tail team but does that still work in division 2 , time will tell. Interestingly on Sporting have what it takes to survive in D1 all the other prospects face instant relegation.

At the wrong end of the table anything less than 221 leaves you in danger, River Plate it is hard to see how they can survive with the weakest attack and defence in the league.  Spurs can hope that a good defensive showing keeps them up , where as Augsburg must hope to knock a few in as they will probably ship a few at the back.  CSKA will look to depth to avoid the drop hoping Cologne , Espanyol or Atletico will get a few injuries

The A.I. does see things a little different , it doesn’t rate Man Utd as highly and sees them finishing around 10^th maybe due to the keeper and lack of depth.  The A.I. predict Real Madrid to come 2^nd and Liege to come 3^rd if this comes to pass it would be interesting to see.

Division 2 is a tougher division than last season around 0.5 points across the board.

All looks set for a Hellas repeat?

First the preamble for any new managers

I look at the average ratings for GK, DEF,MID,ATT, the top 18 player

Then using a tried and ( mostly ) trusted formula work out the ETOT the cumulative score.

Occasionally I have to add a little human common sense if formations look odd or a team has loads of goalkeepers etc..

This year I have also involved A.I. in developing a new prototype formula to include balance and depth , the finishing position according to me is Pre, according to A.I. is A.I, all my comments below are on my predictions we will compare with A.I. at the end.

There is little doubt that strength and depth hard to beat and Hellas have that, they have the best defence in the league and one of the best attacks, crucially any injury is easily covered.  Dortmund sit a little way behind them but well ahead of the rest , they have a better attack but do lack in depth.  Chelsea in 3^rd have less depth but a great keeper and midfield should keep out the opposition while creating chances.

Barcelona have the joint strongest attack in the league ,maybe their defence is a little weak for a title run. Porto are a well balanced team , no real weakness which places them just above Leicester.  Juventus are the only remaining strong challenge at least 1 whole point above their rivals.

As for relegation , around 223.5 would have been a cut off last season.  This place 3 teams in the direct line of fire. Zagreb are a point adrift of the rest and they will struggle for possession and have a weak defence. Malaga another 1.5 points from their rivals are more balanced but an 89 keeper won’t cut it in D1.  Hamburg sit just under the cut off but are by  no means relegation fodder.  Milan with a weaker keeper and defence could struggle more.

For the first time in a while D1 is slightly weaker than last season by 0.07 points.

So what does the A.I. do different. It flips 3 and 4^th Chelsea and Barca around., similarly with Leicester and Juve.  Levante get bumped down 3 spots  . The 3 lowest teams remain the same but the AI sees Stoke being relegated rather than Milan.

Due to the madness of the tactical changes, I decide to engage the help of Cyberdyne systems to help crunch the number to see if they could do any better than me.

First the standard write-up A.I. free.

FK Partizan are the clear winner both of the league and the stats. +8 VA and finishing first leaves them above 2^nd placed Lyon who have the 2^nd highest VA in the league. 3^rd place in the league and stats ( thanks for making my job easy here ) are Monchengladbach who have an impressive +10 VA as do 4^th place Lazio. Biggest winners showing the long term game is paying off are Bilbao who have +14 VA. Newcastle and PSV also performed above predicted.

Independiente finish in 11^th in real life but last in the stats, just slightly better than true last placed team AZ  on -17 VA, who do just better than Napoli on -14 VA.

Now for the A.I. well I got it to crunch the number based on past data , it suggested adding a column for balance and more weighted depth so I have done that and adjusted the weightings as it suggested.

First table is the normal one all my own work.

So then the human and A.I. compared

Does the A.I. do much better, well , hard to say , but it doesn’t do any worse.  So what will happen is this.

Next season I will also use the A.I. formula and produce an alternate finishing position. At the end of the season if machine wins , I will create a new formula for each division based on A.I.  if not I will keep it the same. All seems fair, let the battle commence.

The full Monty in the South of France.

Twelve places above the predicted 14 spots places 2^nd place in the league in 1^st place in the stats. They sit above play off team Feyenoord who have +13 VA who exited early from the play-offs. Boca who must fancy their chance in D3 next season with mighty Mo are in 3^rd spot.  Playoff teams Ajax on +11 , their rivals Wolfsburg on +5 and Lokomotive on +7 had great seasons as did Bremen who escaped relegation. Special mention to Sevilla who finished 3^rd in the league but 17^th in the stats perhaps showing there in no bias in the stats!

Some really poor showings led to Monaco and Brugge on -12 and -13 VA being relegated and Celtic who were predicted much better coming 13^th and last in the stats. Division 4 was slightly closer to norms with 2 of the predicted relegation teams going down and 2 of the 3 auto promotion teams going up.

Happy days in Moscow for CSKA

A really strong keeper combined with a forward line scoring at will was a recipe for victory , CSKA go up as champs with +8 VA and + 9PVA.  Two other teams have a higher VA , Augsburg who finished 3^rd in the tight race for the top 3 and Dnipro the evident over achievers in this GW who made the play offs but lost painfully to West Ham.  The Hammers were amongst 4 teams on + 6 VA, St Etienne who just missed the playoffs,  Hoffenheim and Fiorentina who dodged relegation. Anderlecht who finished 2nd in the league also rate a mention as it is always hard to improve much on a predicted 2nd spot, a few goals difference would have seen them 1st in the league and 3rd in the stats..

Everton who sit at the foot of the table could have the last laugh as they made the playoff final despite finishing 4 spots below where they could. Maybe they could argue that Valenica’s fall from grace on -11 VA was a worse performance or their fellow relegation buddies Shakhtar. Fenerbache , Sunderland and PSG had a tough season.

Hamburg dominate a topsy turvy division.

Maybe the best stimulus to promotion is to avoid relegation? Hamburg who were a well balanced side finished with a VA of 16 and PVA of 17 an amazing season.  Zagreb would normally have claimed the top stats spot with +13 VA and 4.67PVA,   Malaga is 3^rd spot in the stats are in the playoffs finishing 6 places above expected.

Big congratulation have to also go to Southampton on + 9 VA and Atletico on +6.

West Brom did an inverse Hamburg should have been first but finished 17^th on – 16 VA , a devasting first half of the season left them nowhere to run.  Genoa narrowly escaped relegation on -12 VA. Leverkusen could still redeem themselves in the play offs.  Internacional ,Swansea and Internacional also had seasons to forget. Again the tactical changes seem to have thrown the stats into the air for the moment at the top end with only sure fire Schalke going down

Winner, winner no chicken dinner?

Brief explanation PVA = Positional value added, this is the value added modified with the finishing position taken into account, for example a team finishing 1^st from 6^th has obviously done a lot better than one finishing 15^th from 20^th. The tie breaker is then the value added, following by finishing position if need.

So top of the stats are 4^th placed team Sao Paulo , predicted to come 15^th they finish 4^th, this gives them a might value added of +11 and a PVA of +3.

This narrowly beats Bayern who also have a PVA of 3 but a value added of 8 finishing in 3^rd.  3^rd in the stats are Barcelona who had a great resurgent season finishing second. They just head Hellas who did all they could finishing 1 place above expected.  Notable big value added goes to Man City and AC Milan

The three worse performers were Dortmund who should have won the league but finished 8^th, Leicester who after many great seasons were also 7 places below expected and Inter who just avoided relegation. Seems the new tactic had more of an effect on the top teams than the lower teams who still sat with one exception more or less where they should have done

Any one of 6 for the title?

Realistically there are a number of teams who could win the title, which could only leave 1 play off spot free for the rest.

Independiente look the strongest, best keeper in the league, decent defence, midfield.  Marseille is just a little weaker but do have more depth for the final push. AZ 1:1 could beat Marseille or Independiente back they have even less depth than their title rivals.  Torino have very strong attack for the league they are in but defensively are weaker. Napoli even more so but will they get enough possession to make use of that 91 rated attack option. Kazan finally goes for the strong first team, lack of depth approach.

Spartak are ahead of the rest of the pack and while not title contenders should sew up the final playoff spot and maybe that could be to their advantage.

218 is the cut off for survival in D4 so Villareal, Partizan, Twente could also be in contention.

Bilbao are favorites for the wooden spoon, although Chievo should give them plenty of competition for last place.