Performance ratings for all notable Bundesliga players have now been refreshed taking into account the new scoring matrix and performances from pre-season and the opening games.
Over the International break, I’ll be refreshing each league following the changes to the scoring matrix and what we have learned from pre-season and the opening games.
The changes should not be much of surprise to members who have been following the Scouting in recent weeks. Reasons for changes have in almost all cases been discussed there.
Usually, Scouting will detail the reason for each and every change. When dealing with so many changes after the new matrix it is not possible to provide a write up for every single one this time.
But, for convenience I have listed the ones that have improved or declined below.
The full tables, with Bundesliga players updated, are now available in the usual place in the members area under defenders, midfielders and forwards respectively.
A Note on Performance Ratings
I put a great deal of time into compiling the performance ratings. They are sound, evidence based judgements of the real performance strength of players. I am a tough marker and a player has to do a lot to get 4 stars or more.
Some people may find the ratings surprising as they can be shockingly different to the general chatter you see about how good a player may or may not be on social media or the perception of how good a player is in reality.
This is because when assessing the ratings all hype and bluster is removed – they are an evidence based assessment of how likely the player is to deliver big performance scores consistently on the Football Index. I have a high degree of confidence in them.
However, as discussed often in Key Strategy, to succeed we must use the ratings and the Scouting information in combination with the trend information available on the Dashboard and consider whether they are good value or not.
A strong Current rating is an indicator they are likely to put up consistent strong performance scores. Whilst price rises often follow, that isn’t always the case if the player is off trend.
Equally, a player with a low Current rating is still capable of getting a rare win or scoring and soaring in price if their trend fit works.
So, I would absolutely not go out and automatically buy all 4 star or above players or sell any 2 and below. That is not the intended way to use them. The primary purpose of the ratings is to be the “hype buster”. They help us judge whether a player is really strong or not and then we can trade accordingly.
For example, I may be wondering whether a player who has won recently is worth holding even if they have risen in price. If they have a high rating and are likely to win again, I am more likely to keep them.
If on the other hand a player has just won or risen in price but actually has a weak rating and is unlikely to win again, I am much more likely to sell and take that profit before they blank a few times and traders realise their weakness.
I may also hold a striker at 2 stars if they are good value and good for IPD, that’s absolutely fine and the ratings do not reflect IPD appeal (that’s covered in Scouting).
A Note on the Bundesliga
The Bundesliga is one of my favoured leagues to trade in and I’ve been able to unearth many a gem in this league. Many traders are that bit less confident in the foreign leagues than they are in the EPL and that can open up opportunities for those who know them well.
It is dominated by the superb Bayern of course. Bayern players are performance gold because they score so many goals. That should continue although there are a few headwinds: rotation due to lots of competition for places, the tendency to concede goals which hits defenders and the “match winning goal” issue.
Bayern score so frequently that the odds of hitting the match winner are lower compared to other teams. That’s a nice problem to have but it can also be a source of frustration at times.
Overall, Bayern should remain one of the elite performance sides but rotation is particularly on my mind this season this season for them and we must be wary of it.
Dortmund have the very same problem with rotation – they have so much talent it is quite difficult to see where it all fits in sometimes. But they remain an excellent source of performance points.
Leverkusen too showed extremely performance friendly stuff at times last season. They have had a slow start by those high standards but they still look good and I think we will see them improve.
Behind them we have Leipzig, Gladbach and Frankfurt who can also be good but it tends to require a strong IPD player you can see getting a bigger transfer later.
Beyond that, you can find some extremely strong players like Kramaric hiding at fairly small clubs too, as well as the occasional future big transfer target.
There is also the “Next Sancho” story in this league where any English youngster getting minutes in the Bundesliga becomes very easy to sell. This is way too simplistic thinking – Sancho’s do not appear very often at all. We shouldn’t get too hooked on this idea in my view but you absolutely can and should exploit the willingness of the “next Sancho” crowd to pay too much.
Improvers
Leon Goretzka
Corentin Tolisso
Jadon Sancho
Filip Kostic
Marcel Sabitzer
Daniel Caligiuri
Julian Brandt
Michael Cuisance
Marco Richter
Robert Lewandowski
Alphonso Davies
Jann-Fiete Arp
Robert Skov
Luca Waldschmidt
Timo Werner
Andrej Kramaric
Kai Havertz
Kerem Demirbay
Mats Hummels
Nico Schulz
Decliners
Thiago Alcantara
Karim Bellarabi
Jonathan Tah
Lucas Hernandez
Nabil Bentaleb
Raphael Guerreiro
Achraf Hakimi
Dan-Axel Zagadou
Matthias Ginter
Dayor Upamecano