Manchester United lose ground to City, Chelsea and Liverpool in the Soccer Power Index
According to FiveThirtyEight (h/t Manchester Evening News), Manchester United have been ranked eighth in the new ranking of football clubs.
This is according to the new Global Soccer Rankings, which rates the overall strength of a team compared to clubs across the world. United have garnered a Soccer Power Index (SPI) of 85.5, placing them eighth-best in the world in the standings.
Alarmingly enough, it puts us as the fourth-best English side, behind the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool. Perhaps to drive the point home, our city rivals lead the Index this year.
According to the report, SPI is FiveThirtyEight’s best estimate of a team’s overall strength. This takes into account offensive and defensive ratings for each team. The former refers to the number of goals a specific team while the latter represents the number of goals the team will be expected to concede.
These, in turn, produce an overall SPI rating, which represents the percentage of available points the team would be expected to take if that match were played multiple times.
On average, the average offensive rating for United is 2.4 while their defensive rating is 0.5. This perhaps surprisingly put us ahead of Paris Saint-Germain in ninth spot and Juventus in the 15th spot.
Before a season begins, a team’s SPI ratings are based on two factors: its ratings at the end of the previous season, and its market value as calculated by Transfermarkt.
The standings are curious given that we finished ahead of the likes of Liverpool and Chelsea last season. It would appear that while the SPI ratings give an indication of a team’s prowess, it need not always translate into on-field performances.
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Bauern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid and RB Leipzig are the other teams ahead of us in the SPI rankings. Arsenal are the only other English side in the top 20, which is rounded off by Europa League champions Villarreal.
