Division 1 Season 4 Stats and Facts

Who should win and who is odds on for the chop.

As ever Bayern and Barcelona dominate, at the other end it is hard to see how AC Milan will finish outside the relegation zone.

Firstly , this table is pure statistics. I look at each team, if in doubt I look at 442 or 352 as the more common formations. This year I have removed Top15 and Top21 and replaced that by Top18 , the 18th best player , not including duplicate keeper. The reason for this is that top sides were getting a double bonus from already good players , other strong sides had results skewed by players who were never going to play ( good or bad ).

 

GK DEF MID ATT Top18 Average 1 Bayern 92.0 93.0 94.0 98.0 90.0 93.4 2 Barcelona 96.0 93.0 93.5 97.5 85.0 93.0 3 Real Madrid 92.0 92.5 94.0 94.5 86.0 91.8 4 Juventus 94.0 92.5 91.5 92.5 88.0 91.7 5 Chelsea 93.0 90.0 91.0 94.5 85.0 90.7 6 Paris Saint-Germain 88.0 92.0 92.0 94.5 87.0 90.7 7 Tottenham Hotspur 92.0 90.5 92.0 90.5 87.0 90.4 8 Manchester City 91.0 90.0 91.0 92.0 87.0 90.2 9 Liverpool 90.0 92.0 90.0 92.5 86.0 90.1 10 Arsenal 89.0 90.0 91.5 91.5 88.0 90.0 11 SSC Napoli 90.0 90.0 91.5 91.0 87.0 89.9 12 Dortmund 89.0 90.5 92.0 91.0 87.0 89.9 13 Schalke 89.0 90.5 91.0 92.5 86.0 89.8 14 Valencia CF 90.0 90.0 91.0 90.0 88.0 89.8 15 SS Lazio 89.0 89.5 90.0 92.5 87.0 89.6 16 FC Porto 90.0 89.5 90.5 89.5 87.0 89.3 17 Monchengladbach 90.0 89.0 90.0 91.0 86.0 89.2 18 Atlético Madrid 91.0 90.0 89.5 89.5 86.0 89.2 19 Zenit 91.0 89.0 89.0 89.0 87.0 89.0 20 AC Milan 89.0 90.0 90.5 88.0 86.0 88.7

Bayern clearly have the best over all team. Barcelona sit a little behind but are much more vunerable to injuries during the season.  Real and Juve make up the usual top 4. Of the rest Chelsea have the capability to make the top 4 as do Tottenham and Man City on a good day.

The joker in the pack surely must be PSG do they have a decent keeper coming in , if not they will finish a lot lower than the predicted 7th spot, if so then they could finish 4th or 5th.

From 8th to 15th it really will be about manager skill, as the teams are so closely packed in terms of ability. At the lower end,  Porto and Milan will stuggle to impress against the lower teams. Zenit and Atletico lean heavily on their keeper, Atletico may will expect a boost during the season, Zenit may not be so lucky.

The team that will really suffer is AC Milan, promotion is a mixed blessing at the best of times, but they are probably the team least able to score against others and despite a good keeper and defence they are likely to see the ball half as often as they did against Schalke at the weekend. It would be a huge achievement if Mr Beddows keeps them out of the sack race.