How Close Are We? (Part 2)

Back in August I used the data from Football Manager 2014 to consider how close we were to competing for Europe, the Champions League, and the title.  A lot has changed since then, but really not much according to the new database for Football Manager (FM) 2015.

In my original post (found here)  I compared our starting eleven with the starting eleven for Everton, Arsenal, and Manchester City.   I will repeat that comparison using the new database.  I believe the new database is supposed to represent the situation as of 2 September 2014.  It certainly was finalized before 19 September 2014 since it does not show Boruc as being out on loan to Bournemouth.

The numbers I am using are the FM Current Ability (CA) numbers which make for the easiest comparison.  As always, I recognize that these numbers are not reality, they are simply easily accessible and easy to use.

Football Manager 2014 (These are the FM 2014 numbers for the 2015 teams as of when I made the comparison—except for Southampton, which was for the end of last season.)

Pos         Southampton                    Everton                                    Arsenal                                 Man City

G             Baruc 142                             Howard 150                        Szczensy 150                      Hart 148

LB           Shaw 139                             Baines 160                           Gibbs 145                            Clichy 148

CB           Lovren 150                          Distin 160                             Mertesacker 159              Kompany 171

CB           Fonte 130                            Jagielka 156                        Koscielny 158                     Demakelis 148

RB           Clyne 140                             Coleman 147                      Debuchy 147                      Zabaleta 160

CM         Wanyama 146                    Barry 150                             Arteta 158                           Toure 176

CM         Schneiderlin 141               McCarthy 143                     Ramsey 158                     Fernandinho 155

AM         Lallana 152                          Miralles 155                        Ozil 171                                 Silva 174

AM         Rodriguez 142                    Pienaar 148                         Cazorla 165                         Nasri 162

AM         Rameriz 142                        McGready 144                   Walcott 159                        Navas 160

ST           Lambert 142                       Lukaku 151                          Sanchez 162                       Argueo 180

TOTAL   1566                                       1664                                       1732                                       1782

In constructing the lineups for the current season, I had to adjust for the fact that we are no longer playing a 4231. 

Football Manager 2015 (These are the FM 2015 numbers for the post-transfer window teams.)

Pos         Southampton                    Everton                                Arsenal                 Man City

G             Forster 140                         Howard 153                        Szczensy 152                      Hart 158

LB           Bertrand 136                      Baines 159                           Gibbs 145                            Kolarov 146

CB           Alderweireld 143              Distin 138                             Mertesacker 159              Kompany 170

CB           Fonte 131                            Jagielka 155                        Koscielny 158                     Demakelis 149

RB           Clyne 137                             Coleman 149                      Debuchy 148                      Zabaleta 165

CM         Schneiderlin 145               Barry 151                             Cazola 163                           Toure 182

CM         Wanyama 144                    McCarthy 145                    Ramsey 160                     Fernandinho 157

C/AM    Davis 136                             Barkley 143                         Wilshire 150                        Silva 174

AM         Rodriguez 148                    Pienaar 145                         Ozil 171                                 Nasri 164

AM         Tadic 145                              Miralles 154                        Walcott 159                        Navas 160

ST           Pelle 140                              Lukaku 148                          Sanchez 162                       Argueo 180

TOTAL   1545                                       1640                                       1727                                       1805

There are several changes in how FM rates our players.  Betrand, for example, has become slightly worse by joining us.  Clyne has also gotten slightly worse since last year.  On the other hand, Rodriguez has gone up by 6 points and Pelle has gone up by 8 points.

FM’s conclusion, however, is that our starting 11 is 21 points worse than it was last year.  This is not a trivial difference.  It is about the equivalent of replacing one good player with a world class player.

Everton:  FM thinks Everton has gotten 24 points worse.  However, the difference there is explained almost entirely by Distin dropping from being a world class defender to merely an adequate defender.  This means, however, that we are pretty much just as close to catching up with Everton as we were before.

Arsenal:  Arsenal has dropped just 5 points.  However, this is misleading because Arsenal has a bunch of players who don’t fit into their best eleven because of their position, but who have higher scores than some of the players in the best eleven.  Welbeck and Giroud, for example, are 154 and 153 respectively.  In other words, Arsenal has a lot more depth than either Southampton or Everton.  Chambers was a 126 for us, but is now 133.  He has also progressed from having no significant ability to play center back to being very, very good at it.

Manchester City:  FM has Manchester City being significantly improved, which is only to be expected following their championship season.  However, it certainly appears to overrate them right now.  Yaya Toure’s 182 is a real anomaly.  This shouldn’t be a surprise though.  He is 31 years old and has had a bad year personally—a significant drop off in performance should be expected.  Maybe City should sold him in the summer like he asked.

Southampton will have great difficulty catching up with these teams’ FM CA scores.  To catch Everton we need to add 95 points of CA; Arsenal requires 182 CA; and, Manchester City requires 260 CA.  That kind of improvement through the transfer market is simply not possible on our budget.  For comparison purposes, West Ham is 37 points behind us. Swansea is 14 points behind us.  Burnley is 140 points behind us. In other words, FM believes Burnley is closer to catching us than we are to catching Manchester City.

On the other hand, it is pretty clear that, as of now, Southampton is playing far better than the FM 2015 database would permit.  After all, according to FM the only Southampton players good enough to start for Everton are Alderweireld, Rodriguez, and Schneiderlin.  And Schneiderlin would push Barkley out of the starting lineup which is not what would really happen.

Thus, our improvement would have to come through efforts that are not measurable in FM teams—at least not right away.  If we keep playing like this through the January transfer window, the final FM 2015 database will undoubtedly award many of our players much higher ratings.

As for me, this means a couple of things: first, while I will still use the FM data base for blog articles, I will be taking it with even more grains of salt than before; and, second, it is probably just as well that I am so busy with work that I will not have time to start a FM save right now.  It would be too discouraging since I would inevitably far underperform real life.